Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

COVENT GARDEN MARKET BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

OFFENCES RELATING TO MOTOR VEHICLES

Address for Return,
showing the number of offences relating to motor vehicles in England and Wales, the number of persons prosecuted for such offences, statistics of court proceedings and the number of alleged offences in respect of which written warnings were issued by the police, together with the number of persons concerned, during the year ended the 31st day of December, 1964."—[Mr. George Thomas.]

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Voluntary Service Overseas

Mr. Fisher: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will endeavour, in suitable cases, to arrange short training courses for voluntary service overseas personnel soon after their arrival in the countries to which they have been posted.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. Albert E. Oram): Such courses are a matter for the voluntary bodies, which fully appreciate their value. Some courses have been held and others arranged, and the number is likely to increase.

Mr. Fisher: Will the hon. Gentleman agree that although a short course for a week in this country before departure is certainly indispensable, it should, if possible, be supplemented by a further week on arrival in the country concerned, in order that these persons may learn about

local problems and conditions? Will the hon. Gentleman, or his right hon. Friend if she is sympathetic to this point of view, consider asking at any rate the larger Commonwealth countries whether they would be prepared to undertake this work?

Mr. Oram: My Answer referred to courses in the recipient countries. This is in addition to those which are held in this country.

Mr. Longden: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what is her present estimate of the number of graduate volunteers who will be going to serve overseas during the year 1965–66.

Mr. Oram: About 900 graduate and qualified volunteers.

Mr. Longden: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House any reasons for this rather disappointing shortfall of volunteers from his right hon. Friend's estimates, and even from the more realistic estimate of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) last year?

Mr. Oram: In the latter part of the summer there was an unusual number of withdrawals by people who had already volunteered. No doubt there was a variety of reasons for those withdrawals which are not easy to trace. As to whether this figure is disappointing, I point out to the hon. Gentleman that the figure for last year was 507 and that therefore the voluntary societies have done a magnificent job during the course of this year in stepping it up by over 300.

Mr. Longden: asked the Minister of Overseas Development how many visits to schools and higher education institutions have been undertaken so far this year by her Department's officials to acquaint graduates and school-leavers with the opportunities for service overseas, both in professional and volunteer capacities.

Mr. Oram: Eighty-two, Sir. These visits were concerned with professional service. In addition, meetings have been held with voluntary associations which have access to audiences in schools and higher educational institutions to supply them with information and literature about professional service overseas.

Mr. Longden: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that last July he expressed agreement with one of his hon. Friend's anxiety for dynamism in this matter? Is he satisfied that dynamism has come about since then, because the 900, which is 300 short of the graduate volunteers the Government were prepared to finance, is disappointing? Is sufficient being done through the schools and universities?

Mr. Oram: The hon. Gentleman's supplementary question seems to relate more to volunteers than to professional opportunities to which my Answer referred. I think that the Answer I have given and the figures in relation to volunteers show a considerable improvement, and I think this justifies the phrases that I used during the debate last time.

Sir E. Boyle: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that this matter has gained added importance since last year's Ottawa Conference on Commonwealth co-operation, with important new schemes like the study and serve scheme? In view of those new initiatives, would the hon. Gentleman ensure that these matters re ally are brought to the notice of as many higher educational institutions as possible as well as schools?

Mr. Oram: Officials from our Department are constantly engaged in this work, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we put the utmost effort into this matter.

International Development Association

Mr. Fisher: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether it is her intention to provide a further British contribution to the International Development Association when the present funds of the Association have been fully committed.

The Minister of Overseas Development (Mrs. Barbara Castle): Yes, Sir, when the current replenishment phase ends in 1968.

Mr. Fisher: I am very glad to hear that. Will the British contribution be on a multilateral or a bilateral basis? Can the right hon. Lady tell us at this stage whether it is likely to be a larger or a lesser sum than the original contribution, and whether it is likely to be a larger or a lesser proportion of the whole?

Mrs. Castle: By definition this is a multilateral organisation, so any contribution to it must be multilateral. With regard to the size of our contribution, this is a matter which we shall have to consider partly in the light of what contributions are made by other countries and partly in the light of other claims on our resources.

Departmental Staff

Mr. Onslow: asked the Minister of Overseas Development, what increase or decrease there was in the staff of the Department under her control in the period 16th October, 1964 to 15th October, 1965; and what increase or decrease she anticipates in the period up to 15th April, 1966.

Mrs. Castle: Staff increased by 432 during the year in question. A further increase of up to 90 is expected by April, 1966.

Mr. Onslow: Could the right hon. Lady say how she justifies this very considerable increase at a time when actual disbursements of aid are not increasing, nor are likely to increase much? Could she also tell the House whether the establishment of her Department could stand a cut of 10 per cent. or more?

Mrs. Castle: I justify this increase easily in view of the fact that functions have been transferred to me from other Departments and corresponding reduction made in the staffs of those Departments. It is also justified in the light of the highly increased efficiency of the management of our aid as a result of the setting up of the new Ministry.

Pakistan (Third Five Year Plan)

Mrs. Shirley Williams: asked the Minister of Overseas Development, what contribution Great Britain will make to Pakistan's third Five Year Plan.

Mrs. Castle: I am not in a position to announce what aid Britain will offer during Pakistan's third Five Year Plan. This plan covers the years 1965 to 1970, but I understand the Pakistan Government are now reappraising it. As a first instalment, the British Government announced on 23rd September the offer of a loan of £4 million for non-project aid to assist the Pakistan development


programme during the first year of the plan.

Mrs. Williams: While thanking my right hon. Friend for her information about the first instalment, may I ask her for an assurance that there will be no question of Her Majesty's Government cutting off aid to Pakistan in view of the efforts now being made for a cease-fire and a friendly settlement in Kashmir?

Mrs. Castle: I can give that assurance.

India (Fourth Five Year Plan)

Mrs. Shirley Williams: asked the Minister for Overseas Development what contribution Great Britain will make to India's fourth Five Year Plan.

Mrs. Castle: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave my hon. Friend on 23rd February. The Government of India are still considering the final shape and size of the fourth Five Year Plan which is to cover the years 1966–71.

Mrs. Williams: Can my right hon. Friend say if there is any possibility of a substantial part of any British aid being in the form of interest-free loans to India?

Mrs. Castle: Yes, India qualifies for interest-free loans. This has been of great help to her.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Will the right hon. Lady agree that India's first requirement is assistance to overcome the famine in that country? Can she say what Britain is doing to help India in this respect?

Mrs. Castle: We have already this year given £15 million worth of non-project aid to India, which is of very great economic assistance to her, and in her annual plan which she has drawn up for the coming year India is placing, I am glad to say, a greatly increased emphasis on the development of agriculture, which we welcome.

Kenya (Drought)

Mr. Frederic Harris: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what discussions she had with the Kenya Ministerial delegation on the effects of the drought in Kenya this year; and if she will make a statement.

Mrs. Castle: None, Sir. This matter was not raised by the Kenya Ministerial delegation during the recent talks.

Mr. Harris: Does the right hon. Lady fully appreciate that the drought in Kenya this year will probably prove to have been the most serious in living memory and that the eventual effect on Kenya's economy must be very serious? When considering financial plans for next year is there any chance that the right hon. Lady might do something about this at a later date?

Mrs. Castle: My Department is responsible for development aid and not for emergency or famine relief, which is a matter for the Commonwealth Relations Office. The Kenya Government did not raise the subject of famine specifically in the context of the talks we have recently had but, as the House will be aware, during those talks we were able to agree a substantial continuing aid to Kenya on the agricultural side.

Mr. Paget: Is it not true that there is at the moment a definite famine in Kenya, and that people, particularly children, are facing starvation? Whichever Department is concerned, cannot something be done?

Mrs. Castle: Of course, we are aware of this and we deplore it, and I understand that the Kenya Government have asked that R.A.F. aircraft stationed at Nairobi should be available if required for famine relief operations, but I must repeat that this is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.

Kenya (European Mixed Farms)

Mr. Frederic Harris: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will increase the present grant to the Government of Kenya for the purchase of small European mixed farms.

Mrs. Castle: No, Sir.

Mr. Harris: If, subsequently, political pressure in Kenya built up to cause the need to accelerate the acquisition of such farms, would the right hon. Lady be prepared in due time to reconsider the matter with her Government colleagues?

Mrs. Castle: The Question refers specifically to the grant. I should point


out that the aid which I have just negotiated with the Kenya Government is in the form of interest-free loans. We estimate that the fact that the money is interest-free makes it equivalent to a grant of 50 per cent., as compared with the former grant of 33⅓ per cent. As for the future, I have undertaken to review the position at the end of the four years for which we have currently negotiated aid.

Mr. Fisher: I understand, of course, having tried, the difficulty of getting money from the Treasury and I appreciate the interest-free aspect, but would the Minister agree that, from the Kenya point of view, this is a somewhat disappointing settlement and that there could be real danger to race relations in Kenya if progress were too slow? Further, would the right hon. Lady bear in mind that a lot of this compensation money comes back to the United Kingdom in the end?

Mrs. Castle: It is a question of balancing the different needs of Kenya, and it would be quite wrong to devote all aid to the transfer of European farms when, as the hon. Gentleman says, the money comes back here. I want to see that the money is invested in Kenya in agricultural development—land consolidation and general development, as well as just in land transfer. That is what we had very much in mind in negotiating our recent agreement with the Kenya Government, which provides for the continuing transfer of the European mixed farms at a rate of 100,000 acres a year, which we are satisfied, in the light of the Stamp Commission's Report, is sufficient to contain any political unrest whilst leaving some money for other development.

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will make a statement about the continuation of the scheme for purchasing small European mixed farms in Kenya and the continuation of the scheme for buying out compassionate cases.

Mrs. Castle: I have nothing to add to the Answer which my hon. Friend gave on 23rd November.

Mr. Wall: Is the right hon. Lady aware that her recent decision to cut by four-fifths the resettlement grant to Kenya will mean that it will take some 13 years for

those who wish to sell their farms to do so? Is she also aware that the Kenya National Farmers' Union delegation has described this action as a complete betrayal and has said that it is not wholly surprised at Rhodesia's action, in view of the failure of Her Majesty's Government to act honestly towards her subjects in Kenya?

Mrs. Castle: Of course I am aware of the statement, but I think that the fears expressed have been exaggerated and I am confident that the reception of our proposals inside Kenya will be much better than the impression given by the hon. Gentleman.

Kenya (British Farmers)

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she is aware that British Farmers in Kenya who have been accepted as compassionate cases are being offered sums that are out of line with the present value of their farms; and what action she is taking to secure that these cases are treated justly and compassionately.

Mrs. Castle: I understand that some of the offers of purchase by the Kenya Government which are based on the future profitability of the farms have disappointed the owners. On the other hand, in one or two cases the offers have been higher than they expected. The offers are made, of course, on a willing buyer/willing seller basis. However, the Kenya Government have been willing to discuss the offers with a number of applicants at their request.

Mr. Turton: Will the right hon. Lady make plain whether she accepts responsibility for the administration of this compassionate-case money? Is she aware that a farmer suffering from cancer was offered for his farm 45 per cent. of the price at which it had been valued by the Central Land Board? How can she justify that on grounds of compassion or justice?

Mrs. Castle: The applications are made through our High Commission in Nairobi. On the other hand, it is quite clear that the offers made by the Kenya Government must, as in private transactions, be based on the Government's estimate of the return to be secured in order that they can repay the cost of the


loan. Therefore, their estimate of the future profitability of the land must be one of the factors that are taken into account.

Mr. Molloy: Can the right hon Friend say whether she is reviewing the method of valuation in these cases?

Mrs. Castle: The present method of valuation is based on that approved for the O1 Kalou scheme in August, 1964, but the valuation system in farm compassionate cases is being reviewed by the joint working party of valuers which is to meet in Kenya shortly.

Mr. Chataway: Will the Minister confirm that over and above the £18 million loan announced a week ago, money will be made available by Her Majesty's Government to meet all those compassionate cases that fit in with the existing criteria?

Mrs. Castle: Yes, Sir. As I made clear in my statement which I had placed in the Library of the House, we are dealing with compassionate cases outside the £18 million worth of aid that we are giving to the Kenya Government.

Economic Aid (Publication of Statistics)

Mr. Ioan L. Evans: asked the Minister of Overseas Development, in view of the interest in the statistics on economic aid published as Appendix B of the White Paper on Overseas Development, showing the nature and size of British aid to developing countries, and their importance in planning future policy, if she will arrange for the regular publication of detailed and up-to-date figures.

Mrs. Castle: Yes, Sir. I am arranging for a full statistical digest to be published annually. The next issue, which will be available early in 1966, will show the position up to the end of 1965 of both financial aid and technical assistance.

Mr. Evans: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the publication of these valuable statistics is complete justification for the establishment of the statistical department in the Ministry of Overseas Development and will she, in the years ahead, see that money for overseas aid to these territories is given to Ministries other than the Ministry of Defence?

Mrs. Castle: I am not quite sure whether I understand the implications of the last part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, but, on the first part, I think that the whole House will agree that the very detailed statistical tables given in the White Paper which I introduced in the House in August have given a more comprehensive picture of what is actually happening than we have ever had before and that this is an important basis for decision on policy. That is why we decided to issue annual statistics in a far more comprehensive form than has ever been given to the House before.

India, Pakistan and Kashmir (Loans)

Sir J. Smyth: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what grants or loans she has made to India, Pakistan and Kashmir over the past eight months, and what further aid she is contemplating.

Mrs. Castle: Since March this year, two loans together amounting to £15 million have been made to India. No loans to Pakistan were made in this period. There is no separate British aid programme to Kashmir. A further loan of £4 million to India and a loan for a similar sum to Pakistan are expected to be signed shortly.

Sir J. Smyth: Will the Minister try to find some way to assist Kashmir, which is a depressed police State, and rather a blot on the escutcheon of the British Commonwealth of Nations?

Mrs. Castle: That, of course, is not a matter for my Department.

India and Pakistan (Food Situation)

Sir J. Smyth: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what steps she is taking to enable India and Pakistan to avert the famine which they both face as a result of their recent hostilities.

Mrs. Castle: I believe that the hon. and gallant Member is mistaken in thinking the shortages of food grains reported to be likely in India would be to any significant extent due to the recent hostilities. I have seen no reports of any likelihood of shortages in Pakistan. Neither Government has sought any special assistance from us on this account, but I should naturally be very ready


to consider requests that a greater proportion of the technical or capital assistance we give should be devoted to schemes of agricultural improvement.

Sir J. Smyth: Does the right hon. Lady realise that the general opinion is that as a result of the bad monsoon and the war between India and Pakistan, there will be a very severe famine in India during the coming winter, and will she give her very earnest attention to trying to prevent such a catastrophe?

Mrs. Castle: We are all deeply concerned about the food situation and, as I have said, I am glad to know that India's annual plan for 1966–67 puts greater emphasis on agriculture.

Developing Countries (Private Investment)

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will introduce arrangements to provide Government guarantees, up to an appropriate level and subject to suitable safeguards, in respect of direct investments by British industry in developing territories.

Mrs. Castle: I am, of course, studying all possibilities of helping the developing countries, but the hon. Member will realise that in our present balance of payments position we must consider carefully the implications of measures to increase private investment overseas.

Mr. Jenkin: Does it remain the policy of Her Majesty's Government that private investment in developing countries should play a significant part in the development of those countries? Will the right hon. Lady recognise that some guarantee against the political risks involved in such investment could well make a valuable contribution?

Mrs. Castle: I agree that private investment has an important role to play in the economies of developing countries. How important varies from country to country and the degree of development reached. It is simply a matter of priorities and I consider the overriding priority is to provide aid which will give the infrastructure economic and political stability.

University College, Salisbury, Rhodesia

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what grants or loans are now being paid for the use of University College, Salisbury, Rhodesia.

Mr. Hunt: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what special steps she is taking to ensure that British financial aid continues to be made available to the University College of Rhodesia in Salisbury.

Mr. Evelyn King: asked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will continue to honour the commitment entered into by Her Majesty's Government to provide financial aid to the multiracial university college of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to the financing of the University College in Salisbury, Rhodesia.

Mrs. Castle: The financial assistance from Her Majesty's Government towards the recurrent costs of the college is at the rate of £250,000 per year for three years; we have now reached the second year of this arrangement. Since the University College is providing higher education for students of all races and operates under Royal Charter, Her Majesty's Government have decided to continue their assistance to the college so long as Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that conditions continue to exist under which the college is able to discharge this function.

Mr. Wall: I thank the right hon. Lady for that reply. Does she consider the present situation concerning the university as satisfactory?

Mrs. Castle: I think we would all agree that the staff of the university as at present constituted is dedicated to the multi-racial principle.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I understood that the right hon. Lady was answering with this Question Questions Nos. 25, 26 and 30.

Mrs. Castle: I apologise. I was answering those other Questions together with this Question.

Mr. King: May I congratulate the right hon. Lady on the decisions taken? Is it not a fact that this House, however else divided on the question of Rhodesia, is wholly united from Left to Right in believing that the whole key to the situation lies in education? In doing what she said she would do, will she do everything possible beyond that to aid educational opportunity for the people?

Mrs. Castle: Certainly we shall continue to aid the university, which is the only form of educational aid at present under discussion for Rhodesia.

Mr. Dell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that academic freedom is currently being denied to this university college by the censoring of university publications and even internal documents? Should not the provision of aid be conditional on the restoration of academic freedom?

Mrs. Castle: I have said that we shall watch the position very closely and if it becomes clear to Her Majesty's Government that the multi-racial function of the university is being undermined, we shall reconsider the allocation of aid.

Mr. Hunt: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the decision she has just announced will give great satisfaction to all of us who look upon this multi-racial university as an oasis of decency and sanity at present? Will she bear in mind that we consider that the work it is doing is now more important than it has ever been?

Mrs. Castle: I would certainly agree with the last part of that question. I can only hope that the university will be allowed to continue to be the oasis to which the hon. Member referred.

Government Aid and Private Investment

Mr. Onslow: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what studies her Department has commissioned of the relative value to less-developed countries

of governmental aid and private investment.

Mrs. Castle: I have not commissioned any studies exactly addressed to the question posed by the hon. Member, since I believe that Government aid and private investment are complementary and not competitive.

Mr. Onslow: While not accepting the line of argument advanced by the right hon. Lady, may I ask if she would agree that it would be more useful if she made representation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to get an increase in the capital available for British private investment overseas?

Mrs. Castle: I refer the hon. Member to the Chancellor's own references to this matter in the House when he said that he would continue to watch the position in regard to private investment in developing countries.

Multilateral Aid (British Contributions)

Sir R. Russell: asked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will state the annual British contributions to each of the international organisations for the disbursement of multilateral aid since the inception of each institution.

Mrs. Castle: With permission, I will circulate this information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir R. Russell: Could the right hon. Lady say if this includes, for example, drawings from the International Bank on subscriptions from local banks? What rate of increase does she envisage in view of the emphasis in the White Paper on multilateral aid rather than bilateral aid?

Mrs. Castle: The figures include reference to the World Bank. Perhaps the hon. Member will study the details.

Following is the information:

BRITISH GOVERNMENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO MULTILATERAL AGENCIES*


Financial Years



















£ million


—
Year of Inception
1946–47
1947–48
1948–49
1949–50
1950–51
1951–52
1952–53
1953–54
1954–55
1955–56
1956–57
1957–58
1958–59
1959–60
1960–61
1961–62
1962–63
1963–64
1964–65 Provisional
Total


International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
1946
6·5
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
6·5


International Finance Corporation
1956
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
5·1
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
5·1


International Development Association
1960
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
9·0
9·0
9·0
9·0
9·0
45·0


U.N. Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and Special Fund
1950
—
—
—
—
0·5
0·3
0·4
0·6
0·8
0·8
0·7
0·7
0·8
1·2
2·9
2·9
2·9
3·6
3·6
22·7


U.N. Relief and Works Agency
1948
—
—
1·0
0·1
2·0
2·5
4·0
1·8
1·6
2·0
1·9
2·0
1·9
1·9
1·9
1·9
1·9
1·0
1·9
31·3


U.N. Childrens Fund
1946
—
—
0·1
—
0·1
—
0·1
0·1
0·2
0·2
0·2
0·2
0·2
0·2
0·3
0·3
0·3
0·3
0·3
3·1


U.N. Korean Reconstruction Agency
1950
—
—
—
—
0·1
0·3
1·2
4·8
3·2
0·5
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
10·1


U.N. Assistance to the Congo
1960
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1·1
—
—
0·2
0·2
1·5


World Food Programme
1963
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
0·6
0·6
1·2


Indus Basin Development Fund
1960
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
0·3
0·5
4·1
2·9
3·2
11·0




6·5
—
1·1
0·1
2·7
3·1
5·7
7·3
5·8
3·5
7·9
2·9
2·9
3·3
15·5
14·6
18·2
17·6
18·8
137·5


* Excludes contributions to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is not included in the programme of economie and which are solely related to developing countries.

Department (Administrative Cost)

Sir R. Russell: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what is the estimated administrative cost of her Department in 1965–66; and what percentage increase this represents over the administrative cost of the Department of Technical Co-operation in the latest convenient year.

Mrs. Castle: The estimated administrative cost for 1965–66 is £2,347,000. This is an 81 per cent. increase over the corresponding actual cost of the Department of Technical Co-operation for 1963–64, the last full financial year of its existence; the Ministry, of course, has a much wider field of activity than the Department.

Sir R. Russell: Does this increase, which presumably is largely due to an increase in staff which the right hon. Lady justified when answering my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) by saying that there have been increases in efficiency in disbursement of aid, mean that she can give some examples of those increases?

Mrs. Castle: I am afraid that I would need more time than Mr. Speaker would allow to me to answer that question in detail. The White Paper presented to the House last summer gives a full range of the examples which the hon. Member wants. Part of the increase is, of course, due to increases in salaries and costs generally.

Mr. Chataway: While accepting that this 81 per cent. increase is in part justified by the wider responsibilities which the right hon. Lady's Ministry has, may I ask if it is not the case that her staff has increased by 500 and the staff of Departments from which functions have been transferred has been reduced by only 50?

Mrs. Castle: No. The number of reductions of staff of other Departments, which has already been given to the House, is much higher. If the hon. Member cares to approach the Ministers concerned he will find that the latest figures are much higher than that. I would point out to him that the Third Report of the Estimates Committee for

1964–65 contained the comment that the size of the Department was not large compared with that of the Department of Technical Co-operation with its smaller responsibilities.

Bilateral Financial Aid (Exports)

Mr. Alison: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what proportion of bilateral aid is currently tied to United Kingdom goods and services; and what is the estimated figure for exports that this tied aid will generate in the current financial year.

Mrs. Castle: Some 42 per cent. of our official bilateral financial aid disbursed in 1964 was wholly tied, and another 16 per cent. partly tied. A significant part of disbursements under Technical Assistance, pensions and compensation, will also have been spent in the United Kingdom.
It is not possible to estimate the amount of exports generated by this aid in the current financial year as these exports will be spread over several years.

Mr. Alison: Is the right hon. Lady aware that that is an encouraging reply in so far as the proportion she has just given indicates that quite a large amount of foreign aid must generate British exports? Will she bring her Answer to the attention of the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and persuade him to give a much fairer crack of the whip to aid under the National Plan than he has done?

Mrs. Castle: It is true that aid, not only by this country but by other countries, does generate development and, therefore, develops exports. No doubt my right hon. Friend will have noticed that.

Mr. Freeson: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the importance of not tying too high a proportion of aid in view of the need for developing countries to pay for aid from local costs? Will she also bear in mind the need to keep open the door to future genuine internationalisation of development aid to poorer countries?

Mrs. Castle: I entirely agree that it is important to pay attention to the local


cost elements. We always make reasonable allowance in our aid for local cost elements—more generous than other countries. That is why our aid is so effective.

Leeward and Windward Islands (Economic Survey)

Mr. Chapman: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what new arrangements she has made for joint study, with other countries, of the economic needs of the Leeward and Windward Islands.

Mr. Oram: The United States Government, the Canadian Government, and Her Majesty's Government have agreed jointly to sponsor an economic survey of Barbados and islands belonging to the Leeward and Windward Groups. The purpose of the study will be to formulate plans for the achievement of economic viability by the territories concerned and to suggest priorities for the next five years. I hope that the survey will begin in January; it will probably take about four months.

Mr. Chapman: Does my hon. Friend realise the pleasure that this announcement will give to those of us who have campaigned for this sort of consortium for a long time? Does he share our hope, which is possibly a little more important, that the joint study will carry the moral obligation to help with providing funds when studies are complete?

Mr. Oram: I know my hon. Friend's continuing interest in this question, and I am glad that he welcomes the setting up of this mission. The survey will help the donors in the planning of their aid, and I therefore think that the hope expressed in the second part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question will be realised.

Sir H. Harrison: Will the Minister in considering this matter bear in mind the many places of great historical significance in these islands, some of which are now rather in ruins, which are tourist attractions for the citizens of North America, who now come both by air and boat for their holidays? This would bring employment and money to the islands.

Mr. Oram: I feel sure that these are considerations which will be in the minds of the members of the mission.

Aid Programme

Mr. Chataway: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what proportion of the British national income was supplied in aid, both private and official, in 1964; and what proportion is planned for 1970.

Mrs. Castle: Official aid and private investment in developing countries amounted to 1·1 per cent. of our gross national product in 1964. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to him of 16th November.

Mr. Chataway: Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the National Plan does in fact mean that the proportion of our gross national product that goes in aid will be smaller in 1970 than it is today? Will not she give the figure for 1970, which clearly must have been assumed for the National Plan? It is no justification to argue that because there is to be a review of aid before 1970 therefore the figure ought not to be given, because every figure is to be reviewed.

Mrs. Castle: I have no doubt that the hon. Member hopes that our Government will do what his Government did, when after the crisis which they engendered in 1961 they cut back aid and reduced the percentage alarmingly. On the contrary, the hon. Gentleman knows that we have increased aid and we hope to be able to continue to do so, and that is why we have promised under the National Plan to keep the whole situation under review as our balance of payments position improves.

Mr. Chataway: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what proportion of the current aid programme is estimated to place an additional burden upon the United Kingdom balance of payments.

Mrs. Castle: It is difficult to give a precise answer, since this depends on the state of our economy and on the assumptions made about alternative uses of the resources involved, but the range of answers which might be given would all be below 50 per cent.

Mr. Chataway: While I appreciate that there must be room for argument about this proportion, whether it is 50 per cent. or whether, as Mr. Krassowski of the Overseas Development Institute argues, it is somewhat nearer nought, is it not misleading for the National Plan to suggest, as it does, that all overseas aid is a net loss so far as the balance of payments is concerned?

Mrs. Castle: I do not accept that the National Plan does imply that. It is a fact, though, that this form of expenditure contains an element of difficulty for the balance of payments, however one may assess the size of that element. This is one of the difficulties we have to face.

Caribbean (Development Division)

Mr. Chapman: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will make a statement about the establishment of a development division in the Caribbean.

Mr. Oram: The British Development Division in the Caribbean will be situated in Barbados. Mr. W. L. Bell, formerly a Permanent Secretary in the service of the Government of Uganda, has been appointed Head of the Division and will start work in my Ministry at the beginning of January. I hope that, with the appointment of other members of the staff, the Division will become operational in the spring of next year.

Mr. Chapman: Once again may I offer congratulations to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the speed they are putting on in the Caribbean? Will this body co-ordinate plans from the Leeward and Windward Islands for submission to the International Development Association in an effort to get some money out of that body? What will be the relationship of this body to the joint international consortium which was mentioned in the Answer to Question No. 20?

Mr. Oram: As to the function of this Development Division, I refer my hon. Friend to the Answer he received on 1st June, from which he will see that this Division will have satisfactory relationships with the two bodies referred to.

Kenya (Aid)

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what is the total amount of British aid to Kenya, including the amount promised by the four-year farm project.

Mrs. Castle: The estimated total disbursement of financial aid to Kenya during the four-year period beginning in April, 1966, is £29 million, including the £18 million for land purchase and other development recently announced, and £11 million from existing commitments. This sum does not include technical assistance, or whatever may be made available for the purchase of farms on compassionate grounds.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that in the past the money allocated to these purposes has not always been fully spent within the period for which it was allocated? Can she assure us that the money she now promises will be fully spent in the four years ahead?

Mrs. Castle: Yes, Sir. It is true that disbursements have not always matched commitments. In fact, they have lagged far behind and that is why we have an £11 million carry-over. In our negotiations with the Kenya Government I stressed to them that the offer which I was making was for sums to be disbursed and not committed on paper. It is the policy of my Ministry to secure actual disbursements and not merely paper commitments.

Under-Developed Countries (Private Businesses)

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will take steps to assist the development of private businesses in under-developed countries by promoting an organisation similar to the American International Executive Service Corps, particulars of which have been sent to her.

Mr. Oram: No, Sir.

Mr. Lloyd: Is the Minister aware that this organisation has been very useful to a number of under-developed countries? Would not he give some further


consideration to making funds available also for this type of person?

Mr. Oram: I accept the usefulness of the American scheme, but I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that there is no age limit in the volunteer schemes at present existing and encouraged in this country and there is a full opportunity for the type of executives to whom the right hon. Gentleman referred to volunteer through existing machinery.

Oral Answers to Questions — TECHNOLOGY

Fast-Breeder Reactor (Siting)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Minister of Technology if he will now make a statement on the siting of the fast breeder reactor.

Mr. Baker: asked the Minister of Technology if he is yet able to state the location for the proposed fast breeder reactor.

The Minister of Technology (Mr. Frank Cousins): I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) on 23rd November.

Mr. Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend say when he will be in a position to make a statement on this project? In view of the very serious blow being given to the Scottish economy by pit closures and the announcement yesterday on hydro-electric development, does my right hon. Friend recognise that it is vitally important on social, economic and political grounds that a decision should be taken in favour of siting this reactor in the Scottish Highlands?

Mr. Cousins: My hon. Friend must appreciate that I am well aware of the complicated nature of the problems affecting the Scottish economy at present. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland answered the question about the hydro-electric schemes yesterday. I am not able to give a date, but we are dealing with this matter as expeditiously as we can and I hope to be in a position soon to put the facts before the House.

Mr. Baker: Is the right hon. Gentleman cognisant of the communications which I have had with the Atomic Energy

Authority on this subject and will he bear in mind the desirability of siting the reactor on Rettie airfield, Banff?

Mr. Cousins: I am aware that discussions have taken place, but it is not possible for me to say where it will be sited. I have already answered that I am not yet in a position to do so.

Mr. George Y. Mackie: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that all the technical requirements are met by the atomic energy establishment at Dounreay and that the decision to be taken will be wholly a political and economic one when he eventually takes it?

Mr. Cousins: I know that that is not the position, other than to say that Dounreay fulfils the qualifications in the same way as many other sites do where claims are being made for the siting of the reactor, but we are not yet in a position to say where or when it will be sited.

Computer Industry

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Minister of Technology what plans he has for giving assistance to the British computer industry.

Mr. Cousins: The Government's initial programme for assisting the development of the computer industry was announced on 1st March. Since then the National Research Development Corporation has announced that it will be making substantial investments in development projects with computer firms. My Department has placed research and development contracts with the industry and with research organisations totalling £187,000. Contracts for about a further £300,000 are under consideration.

Mr. Lewis: Would the right hon. Gentleman use his influence to see that Government agencies and nationalised industries buy British computers instead of American?

Mr. Cousins: I have been using that influence to the best of my ability for some time, but one has to recognise that it is influence that one tries to use and not a directive.

Mr. Woodburn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that at a European conference in London recently to study the question of


the computer industry it was generally agreed that it was unlikely that there was a sufficient basis in Britain alone to make a viable British computer industry? Will my right hon. Friend consider this question along with other European countries?

Mr. Cousins: This is quite a way from the original Question. We are giving the closest attention to joint efforts in this field, but we in Government circles feel that we can make a viable British computer industry.

ARMS EXPENDITURE

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Prime Minister what steps he will take to accord with the representations he received from Members of Parliament on 2nd August asking for drastic cuts in arms expenditure much earlier than were proposed by Her Majesty's Government in the summer.

Mr. Park: asked the Prime Minister what action he is taking to secure a speedy and large reduction in arms expenditure.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): My colleagues and I are vigorously pursuing the Defence Review, Sir.

Mr. Allaun: Will the Prime Minister agree that the moves so far do not meet the Parliamentary Labour Party resolution of that date? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Will my right hon. Friend reduce the British forces in Germany, costing us £190 million a year, which are not needed and when the German Government are cutting their arms by £80 million a year?

The Prime Minister: The review is not yet completed and we cannot yet announce what action will have to be taken to relate commitments to the available resources both in real and monetary terms.

Mr. Park: Would the Prime Minister not accept that the very heavy strain on the economy which this level of armaments expenditure represents is proving a burden to the achievement of the Government's social programme and is intensifying our balance of payments difficulties? Will my right hon. Friend look again at the expenditure of £500 million a year on overseas bases to see whether

this can be justified, either in terms of its burden on our domestic economy or by a realistic assessment of our peace-keeping operations?

The Prime Minister: I have made it clear a number of times that we are looking at both the foreign exchange component in this expenditure and the general burden on our resources, but we are not yet in a position to announce what our answer to this will be. As far as costs are concerned, I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that the total expenditure this year on defence is not more than two-thirds, and may be a little less, of the programme which all the arguments were about in 1951.

Mr. Thorpe: While reinforcing the plea that the defence burden of about £2,000 million a year should be reduced as far as possible and as quickly as possible, may I ask the Prime Minister whether at the same time he will bear in mind the necessity of our remaining capable of meeting our obligations to our Commonwealth partners, not least the Republic of Zambia?

The Prime Minister: That perhaps may come up on another Question, but so far as the wider issue is concerned we are very much alive to the need of meeting our obligations to our Commonwealth partners and to our allies. It is a question of cutting commitments to a point we can fulfil, and the commitments are highly competitive with one another.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA (OIL EMBARGO)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister what consultations with other Governments have taken place on the question of an embargo on oil shipments to Southern Rhodesia.

Mr. Freeson: asked the Prime Minister what steps Her Majesty's Government will take to implement the United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for an oil embargo to be included in economic sanctions against the Smith régime in Southern Rhodesia.

The Prime Minister: I have, as yet, nothing to add to the statement I made in the House on 23rd November.

Mr. Hamilton: Does the Prime Minister recall that the Foreign Secretary on 22nd November emphasised the need for speedy counsel in this direction? Will he now reiterate Her Majesty's Government's support of, e United Nations Resolution of 20th November and will he give us some idea of the time-scale which he has in mind to implement an oil embargo, which would be extremely effective in bringing Mr. Smith to book?

The Prime Minister: On 23rd November I ma de a very full statement about this and I made it clear that in our study of this and other problems arising out of the United Nations Resolution we could not hope to settle this kind of problem on a unilateral basis. It would be ineffective in terms of what my hon. Friend has in mind and, in fact, could inflict more damage than good, but we are pursuing this vigorously on a multilateral basis.

STAGE AND TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS (CENSORSHIP)

Mr. Hamling: asked the Prime Minister what further consideration he has given to the abolition of censorship of stage and television productions.

The Prime Minister: The Government are considering how best the law relating to censorship of stage plays might be reviewed.

Mr. Hamling: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is disquiet in some circles not only about the activities of some busybodies but also about Government interference in certain programmes——

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not wait for his applause but will get on with his supplementary question.

Mr. Hamling: Is the Prime Minister aware that there is alarm not only about the activities of some busybodies but also about Government interference in programmes, particularly in relation to the programme "The War Game"?

The Prime Minister: The Government have not interfered in any way with stage plays or with any of these programmes.

As regards rumours about "The War Game", the Government have not interfered at all.

Mr. Evelyn King: Is the Prime Minister aware that, during the week in which a constituent of mine, a courageous prison officer, was killed in the execution of his duty, and before his funeral, the B.B.C. chose to put on in the programme "B.B.C. 3", an item sneering at prison officers in general and accusing them of taking part in bribery? Will the right hon. Gentleman say what protection he is able to offer to such public servants?

The Prime Minister: I was not aware of that particular programme. It has always been ruled, by all parties, that we do not interfere in programmes of the B.B.C. or the other television authorities. The particular tragedy to which the hon. Gentleman refers is one about which all of us would feel sympathy, but I do not think that it arises on this Question.

Mr. Lubbock: Will the Prime Minister see that any correspondence between the broadcasting authorities and the Home Office in relation to the programme "The War Game" is published?

The Prime Minister: I am fully aware of all the circumstances in this matter, and I have been into it very fully. The Government have informed the B.B.C. that we have no observations to make on whether it should be shown or not.

Mr. Bellenger: I recognise the complexities involved in this question, but is my right hon. Friend aware that portions of television programmes are giving affront to many of our people? Will he, in virtue of his prominent position, express his disapproval of some of the obscenities which are being broadcast?

The Prime Minister: Whatever our private feelings—some of us have seen some of these programmes—I do not think that it is right for Ministers to express officially disapproval or approval of individual programmes. There is proper machinery for handling these matters. But this Question relates to the whole problem of censorship, mainly, as I understood it, in relation to stage plays, which all of us recognise as a problem. We are considering how that problem should be dealt with.

TRANSPORT CO-ORDINATION (LORD BEECHING)

Sir R. Nugent: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement about the circumstances in which the Government decided not to employ Lord Beeching's services for the study of transport co-ordination carried out earlier this year.

Mr. Ridley: asked the Prime Minister why he decided not to employ Lord Beeching to carry out a study of transport co-ordination.

The Prime Minister: It has already been explained. I was very anxious that Dr. Beeching, as he then was, should do this study. But he had, in his evidence to the Geddes Committee, taken a strong pro-railway and anti-road line, and the Government considered that, unless he had attached to him assessors who could represent all points of view, there would be strong ground for criticism in this House and elsewhere. Unfortunately, Lord Beeching insisted on a one-man inquiry without assessors.

Sir R. Nugent: But did not the Prime Minister, in the first place, get Lord Beeching to agree to do this study single-handed and afterwards impose conditions on him which caused him to withdraw? Is not this what his right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology meant by "sacking" him?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The statement made by my right hon. Friend made quite clear the circumstances in which that interchange occurred last week. [Laughter.] If hon. Members opposite are interested in this important question rather than their usual vendetta against my right hon. Friend, certainly the Government were very anxious that Lord Beeching, with his high qualifications, should do it, but I can just imagine the howl there would have been from hon. Members opposite, particularly those sensitive to road haulage interests, if Lord Beeching, after years of taking the rail point of view and after the evidence submitted last year, had gone into this inquiry alone without assessors representing the point of view of road haulage.

Mr. Ridley: Is not the Prime Minister aware that he appeared to have changed

the terms of reference after he first asked Lord Beeching to undertake this survey, and it further appeared that this was as a result of pressure from the Minister of Technology? Is not this a clear example of the undesirability of having a Cabinet Minister remaining a member of the union?

The Prime Minister: It is about time the hon. Gentleman grew up and faced the facts which this serious problem presents. There was widespread criticism in the Press and elsewhere of the evidence from British Railways to the Geddes Committee, although many people felt that it was reasonable in the emphasis which it placed on the pro-railway side. There would certainly have been the most inordinate howl from road haulage interests—nothing to do with the Minister of Technology—and, I should have thought, from some hon. Members opposite unless one could have been sure that Lord Beeching had access to the views of all concerned. This was why the proposition was put to him. As regards his going back to I.C.I., this, of course, was arranged a long time ago. He was due to go back to I.C.I., but we asked him whether he would stay longer to do this inquiry.

Sir M. Redmayne: The right hon. Gentleman has stressed that this is an important question. Can he say when his right hon. Friend proposes to provide an answer to it?

The Prime Minister: If the point of the right hon. Gentleman's question is to ask when we shall make a statement on transport co-ordination, we are very hard at work on this, but—[Laughter.] All we got in the previous 13 years was disco-ordination. I was not aware that any right hon. Gentlemen opposite thought that anything had been done to coordinate the transport services in those years. They carried out a pretty effective wrecking action in 1954.

POSTMASTER-GENERAL (SPEECH)

Mr. Gibson-Watt: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Postmaster-General at Aberdeen on 14th October on the future of the Post Office represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Is the Prime Minister aware that in that speech the Postmaster-General referred to the handicap he felt in having to answer on every detail of Post Office work in the House of Commons? Is it his intention to relieve his right hon. Friend of those responsibilities?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend did not say that accountability to Parliament should not continue. He said that it created special difficulties for the Post Office, which is the only publicly-owned industry subject to detailed Parliamentary control. In fact, the words which he used were used previously by a very distinguished Conservative Postmaster-General.

RHODESIA (VISITS BY BRITISH CITIZENS)

Sir H. Harrison: asked the Prime Minister what restrictions have been placed by Her Majesty's Government on British citizens visiting Southern Rhodesia.

The Prime Minister: The travel allowance for. United Kingdom residents visiting Rhodesia is restricted to £250. The previous concession whereby a United Kingdom citizen could take shotguns and cartridges to Rhodesia without a licence has been withdrawn. There are, t present, no other restrictions.

Sir H. Harrison: Will not the Prime Minister agree that it is still a good thing for private citizens to visit Rhodesia, whether wishing to see relations there, wanting to go on holiday or wanting to go there for business?

The Prime Minister: I think that the arguments are very finely balanced. One of the things I have referred to in the House is the possibility of whether we should at the right moment have a Parliamentary delegation. I think that it would be very healthy indeed if we were able to have some contact with a number of shades of opinion in Rhodesia, including some of those which most need encouragement but are not getting all that much.

FUEL INDUSTRIES

Mr. Peyton: asked the Prime Minister what advice or instructions he gave to the leaders of the fuel industries when he met them on 17th November; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement issued from 10, Downing Street on 17th November, 1965, a copy of which is in the Library.

Mr. Peyton: Will the Prime Minister reflect on the paucity of that Answer? Does not he agree that he was wasting the time of these people, who are already under considerable pressure, and does not he agree further that the intervention of Prime Ministers in the affairs of nationalised industries makes the almost impossible task of these chairmen worse than it is? Is it not wholly wrong to indulge in what appears to have been a short-term exercise conducted for public relations reasons?

The Prime Minister: There was great concern about the reasons for the power cuts, and one object of my meeting was to establish clearly what they were. If the hon. Gentleman is prepared to do a deal with me that neither of us will interfere in the day-to-day operations of the nationalised industries, I am prepared to consider it with him.

NUCLEAR WARHEADS

Mr. Orme: asked the Prime Minister if he is aware that for more than six years nuclear warheads have been mounted secretly on aircraft and missiles of West Germany and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies; and what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government on this matter.

The Prime Minister: No non-nuclear members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have nuclear warheads under national control. The forces of a number of non-nuclear members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation are equipped with nuclear delivery vehicles. My information is that the warheads for these weapons are kept under strict United States custody and control at all times.

Mr. Orme: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this statement, first published in the New York Times and subsequently in the British Press, has caused great concern, and will he give an assurance that in no circumstances will there be a German finger on the nuclear trigger?

The Prime Minister: I am not responsible for what appears in the Press, whether it be the New York Times or any other newspaper. So far as the Question is concerned, the arrangements have always been known, I think, by this House, and certainly as far as these particular weapons are concerned there is no German finger on the trigger for the reason set out in my original Answer.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. Question Time is over.

BILLS PRESENTED

MISREPRESENTATION

Bill to amend the law relating to innocent misrepresentations and to amend sections 11 and 35 of the Sale of Goods Act 1893, presented by Sir E. Fletcher; supported by Mr. Jay and the Attorney-General; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 22.]

BUILDING CONTROL

Bill to regulate building and constructional work, presented by Mr. Pannell; supported by Mr. Crossman, Mr. Diamond, Mr. Albu, the Attorney-General and Mr. Boyden; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 21.]

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will hon. and right hon. Gentlemen leaving the Chamber please do so quietly.

3.32 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is clearly a Bill of major importance. It implements the Government's proposals set out in the two White Papers, on the Development of Agriculture and the Marketing of Meat and Livestock, which were published in August. I believe that the Bill will be welcomed in general in all parts of the House, because it will aid and encourage the further development and modernisation of British farming, and will help it to play an even more vital rôle in a dynamic national economy.
With this objective throughout, the Bill falls into a number of parts. Part I will improve the marketing of livestock and meat; Part II will help to modernise our farm structure; Part III will promote the better use, in a comprehensive manner, of our hill lands; Part IV will encourage wider co-operation in agriculture and horticulture; Part V will widen the credit facilities available to farmers, will enable further steps to be taken to improve animal health, and, last but by no means least, will improve the conditions of service for farm workers.
I will not go into each Clause in detail. Obviously, this is a long Bill. We shall scrutinise it very carefully in Committee. But I will try to highlight some of the parts of the Bill and deal with those parts where there may be controversy.
The Bill starts with the marketing of meat and livestock. Committee after Committee has said that reform and change were badly needed, but nothing has been done. The Verdon-Smith Committee produced a most comprehensive and fair analysis of the problems of the meat and livestock industry. This analysis has helped us greatly. Opinions may differ on whether its recommendations


went far enough, but the Committee was in no doubt that reform was required.
This Bill contains the action the Government propose to provide those reforms. The instrument for these reforms will be an independent statutory body, the Meat and Livestock Commission, with wide scope for action at every stage, from the production of animals on the farm to the selling of meat on the retail counter. There is scope here for benefit to every section of the industry as well as to the consumer.
For the producer, there will be help to produce what the trade and the consumer want. He will be helped also towards better marketing, whether individually or through producer groups, and whether, too, by older methods or by contracts.
Next, the Commission has a whole field of activities concerned with improving marketing and distribution. These range from markets and slaughterhouses to the classification of carcases. They provide for better intelligence about supply and demand, market prices, and all that is needed to secure a fair bargain between producer, distributor and consumer.
Finally, the consumer is to be specially helped in a number of ways. I hope that hon. Members will approve of this approach. Clauses 7 and 8, in particular, provide for descriptive marking and proper display of prices, so that consumers may know exactly what they are buying and at what price.
The important work that P.I.D.A. has been doing—and hon. Members on both sides will, I think, pay tribute to its work—will also be taken over by the Commission, and under Clause 21 the Authority will be dissolved. This transfer will be made with the least possible interruption to the progress of the work and the least possible disturbance to the staff engaged on it. The activity will broaden out to include equally important and necessary work on cattle and sheep.
Similarly, under Clause 3, work of certification under the guarantee will be transferred to the Commission. It will be doing the job of classification, and it clearly makes sense that it should do the job of grading for the guarantee as well. This will inevitably involve transfer of our grading staff, but the Commission's terms of employment will not be less favourable to them than those they now have in the Civil Service.
In addition to the activities of the Commission to which I have referred, I wish particularly to draw attention to the provisions of Clause 9. Here, I know, there has been considerable discussion, and there undoubtedly will be argument. This Clause allows the Commission—which must on this consult the statutory committees representing the interests concerned—to put forward development schemes for any section of the industry, after it has published their proposals and taken into account any representations made about them. Those schemes will become law only if they are approved by Ministers and by affirmative Resolution of both Houses. This power is wide, and I make no apology for that. My right hon. Friend and I think it right that this Commission should have this power to put forward proposals to tackle the problems of this great meat industry, as they exist or as they may emerge. The industry must be a flexible one, ready to adapt its structure as conditions change. We cannot now be dogmatic about what changes will be required over the years. I hope that hon. Members opposite accept this approach. I am not sure whether I saw one hon. Member shaking his head. It would be silly for any Government to be dogmatic about the future. Therefore, we must have these provisions in Clause 9. But it is also right that such powers should be accompanied by safeguards. These are fully provided in the Bill itself and in the Second Schedule.
The House will note, that, despite the width of the powers under Clause 9, these do not allow for support buying. I will not disguise that I was at first inclined towards giving the Commission this power. But close study convinced me that the economic arguments were all the other way. The N.F.U. has made it clear that it expects the cost of support buying to be met wholly or mainly by the Exchequer. The cost of a support buying operation would be very considerable indeed and the savings to the Exchequer in lower deficiency payments would be, to say the least, problematical.
The consumer, of course, would not benefit in any way and the total returns of producers would be unaffected by support buying, for their position is in any case protected by the guarantee. This is in contrast to the position in other countries which use support buying as a


major means of subsidising the producer and which are, for that reason, prepared to meet the substantial loss entailed. For these reasons, I believe that it is right not to have support buying as one of the functions of the Commission.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: Are we to take it from what the right hon. Gentleman has just said that the Minister's own powers, which are sought in Clause 19, cannot be used in order to give the Commission power to do this?

Mr. Peart: Certainly. I believe that if such a decision is made after some experience or advice given by the Commission it should be given effect by the Minister through new legislation. I think that is the right course. I have given my arguments. In the main, they are fundamentally practical economic arguments. To have support buying by the Commission would be costly and, knowing the meat industry and the nature of the commodity, it could be extremely expensive.

Mr. George Y. Mackie: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how his economic argument compares with the scheme of Government support which forces up the price of grain from abroad in order to keep up the price here? Surely it would be more logical to have support buying on meat?

Mr. Peart: The two cases are not the same. We do not try to force up the price of grain. In any case, that system was introduced through legislation supported by both sides of the House and it was not effectively opposed by the Liberals.
As I have said, the two cases are not comparable. Many other countries have support buying, but they do not have the support system that we have under the 1947 and 1957 Acts. Our deficiency payment system is quite different from that of France, for example. For all these reasons, quite logically it would be silly to introduce this function as one to be exercised by the Commission, and I hope that the Liberals will see the sense of that approach.
I should now like to say something about the Commission's finances. Under Clause 14 the cost of the work done by the Commission on behalf of the Govern-

ment will be reimbursed by the Exchequer. We also provide for Exchequer contributions towards the initial cost of new projects on which the Commission may embark.
In the main, however, the Commission will be financed by a levy on animals slaughtered. The Commission will put forward a levy scheme under Clause 12, after consultation with the committees representing all the interests concerned. Then the scheme must be approved by Ministers, and finally by an affirmative Resolution of both Houses.
As for the amount involved, I have seen figures suggested which I must say I consider to be wholly misleading and designed only to scare. I think it likely that a levy on all fatstock comparable with the present P.I.D.A. levy on pigs would be adequate; and if the whole effect of this were passed on to the consumer, it would represent less than one farthing per lb. on average. And this assumes that there are no savings to be found. But the whole object of the Commission's work will be to improve efficiency in production and distribution. The result, of course, should be not to raise costs or prices but in the end to reduce them.
Lastly, let me say something about the constitution of the Commission. It will be dealing with the problems of a wide ranging industry consisting of many different elements and must concert its policies to serve the best interests of producers, distributors and consumers. An organisation concerned with the overall problems of such an industry could not be drawn from, or be responsible to, one only of those interests. This organisation must think in terms of producers, distributors and consumers. In that sense it will, I believe, really serve the interests of the nation as a whole.
The National Farmers' Union, at the end of last week, came out with the statement that the only solution is a fatstock marketing scheme with statutory powers, i.e. a producer marketing board. I cannot agree that this is the way to set about the task. I do not know what kind of control over home-produced stock the N.F.U. have in mind. Presumably each producer would be under the control of the producer board to the extent of being told when and where he could market his


stock. This would involve a very large and costly organisation and the results it could achieve would probably be very small. Indeed, I can quote back the N.F.U.'s own words:
The cost of such an organisation might well be disproportionate to any benefits likely to arise from its operations.
While I am sure it is right that ultimate decision:; must rest with the sort of independent body which the Commission will be, it is equally right that the Commission should have all possible help from the different interests concerned. This need will be met by the committees for which Clause 2 provides. They will represent producers, distributors and consumers. They will have to be consulted by the Commission on any matter affecting their interests, but they will have other important functions as well. They may initiate proposals to the Commission, suggesting lines of action it should follow. Equally, the Commission may entrust these committees with the carrying out of executive responsibilities.
In short, we have provided here for a constructive partnership between the Commission and the various interests concerned, with those interests taking the fullest possible part in the working out of the Commission's policies and their execution. In devising this structure, my right hon. Friend and I have taken account of views put forward by those who represent these interests. The producers, in particular, should know that I have modified the Bill in several ways to meet their point of view, particularly in strengthening these committees. I do not think that one can go further than that. We have tried to make the committees bodies with certain responsibilities. They will not be just advisory. They will be able to initiate and will also have powers of execution.
With the changes now embodied in the Bill, I submit that now we have the right kind of machinery for carrying through the wide range of functions with which the Commission will be charged. They will be functions of great potential benefit not only to producers and distributors but also to the consumer, on whose purchases and satisfaction everyone engaged in this industry depends.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the ques-

tion of the Commission in relation to its committees, can he state why the chairmen and members of the committees are to be members of the Commission and subject to the qualifications which members of the Commission must have—in other words, that they must not be connected with the industry?

Mr. Peart: I have looked at this matter very carefully. As the production committees must have a link with the Commission, I think that it is right that a member of the Commission, the higher body, should sit on the production committee as its chairman. As I have said, the committees will initiate ideas and, through their chairmen, will be able to pass those ideas to the higher organisation, and so there will be a to and fro approach which will make for the better working of the Commission. I know that there are arguments about having a separate chairman, but I believe that it is essential to keep that link.
I now come to the second major purpose of the Bill, the development of our agriculture. Some people say that the industry is quite capable of adapting itself and that the problem is being exaggerated. I do not agree. I think that there are problems and that the Government should provide inducements to help the industry to solve these problems. This is what we are doing in the Bill.
One of the key factors is undoubtably the small farm. Three-quarters of our farms in this country provide work for less than two adults per farm. The majority are run part time, sometimes for pleasure, by people with other incomes. There is nothing wrong with this. It is part of our way of life and we must accept it. But they must not expect a full-time livelihood from a part-time farm. Indeed, one of the remedies for some of them may be to organise their farming so that they can do another job and supplement their income in this way.
But there are still more than 100,000 full time small farms. In the past quarter of a century farming techniques have been revolutionised. Farms that were full-time a generation ago are now part-time. We have to ask ourselves what will be the condition of these 100,000 small farms in a generation from now. What will be the effect meanwhile in frustration of effort, in wasted human


talent, and in low living standards, if nothing is done to help them? I do not believe that we should allow these men to be driven to the wall by the cold squeeze of economics without lifting a finger to help them.
There are four ways in which we are helping these men to help themselves. First, the small farmer can, on his existing holding, intensify his farm business and, by increasing its size, reach a satisfactory commercial standard. This will be easier for those already near the borderline of a satisfactory commercial business. This is why at the last Annual Review, with the agreement of both sides of the House, we remodelled the small farmers scheme and raised its upper limits. This is why under Clause 59 we are introducing a farm record scheme to help and encourage farmers—particularly the small farmers—to increase their business efficiency.
But there will still be many small farmers who find it difficult to enlarge their business sufficiently on the basis solely of their own holding. Many will be able to make themselves more viable by co-operating with other farmers, thus securing some of the benefits of scale and of specialisation in both production and marketing. This is the second place where the Government intend to help. Under Clause 55, we ask for power to make a scheme for grants to encourage a wide range of co-operative activities. The grants will be designed to encourage the promotion, development and organisation of co-operation both in marketing and, for the first time, in production, which, I believe, holds great potentialities.
We also propose, under Clause 52, to set up a Central Council both to promote and develop co-operation, and to assist in the administration of the proposed new comprehensive schemes of grants.
But co-operation can, of course, never be a complete remedy for a serious shortage of land. The third way in which small farmers can help themselves to get a full return for their skill is to get more land. But this needs capital and here again we are to help.
In Part II of the Bill we are making the first serious attempt in this country to tackle the problem of too many farms

too small for adequate use of the occupier's skill. We are to pay, under Clause 25, 50 per cent. grants towards virtually all the costs of an amalgamation apart from the cost of the land. In addition, under Clause 27, we will be able to make or guarantee loans to help with the purchase of the extra land as well as with the applicant's share of the cost of equipment.
The White Paper set a target of 600 standard man-days for a commercial unit under our amalgamation proposals. I know that there has been argument about this in the farming Press, but this means full employment for the farmer and the equivalent of one other man—and therefore is within the capacity of many family farms. Some suggest that this target may be too high. I am convinced that it would be wrong to take a figure that would be out of date in a few years. But, of course, there will be many cases, particularly in some parts of the country, where it is just not practicable to reach such a commercial size in one step. Therefore, under Clause 25 we take powers to assist an intermediate stage of amalgamation, as long as nothing is done to prejudice a later amalgamation to full commercial size.
There may, however, be many small farmers—for example, those who are getting on in years—who wish to give up their uncommercial holdings and release land for amalgamation into a larger unit. In this fourth way the Government will help by taking ample powers under Clause 26 to pay lump sums or annuities to those who wish to retire or resettle provided their land goes for amalgamation. Nothing in these proposals will in any way force small farmers to take this assistance—this is not a compulsory scheme. They can stay on. But, if they wish to get out, it is only reasonable to help them. Some may not be able to find a private owner who is ready and willing to buy their land for amalgamation. We are, therefore, proposing that the State should be able to buy land, where this is offered to it for amalgamation and is suitable for that purpose. Clause 28 makes it clear that the powers already in existence under the Agriculture Act, 1947, can be used for this purpose.
Although the White Paper suggested certain sums for the lump sums or annuities, the Bill does not specify them.


We have always made it clear that we want the, views of all those concerned as to whether these sums were adequate. Perhaps hon. Members during debates on the Bill will put forward their views on this point, and we shall continue to consider the views of those outside the House who arc concerned. We shall then decide what sums to put in the scheme which will be put to this House for approval.
I am sure that the House will agree that in these four ways we are making a very genuine attempt by a variety of methods to help the small farmer. They have the right to be helped—and to be helped constructively—to overcome their difficulties.
But what of the bigger farmers already operating a business on a commercial scale? They produce by far the greatest part of the food we grow here at home.
To secure the objectives of the National Economic Development Plan, these farmers must be helped to increase their productivity still further. We shall, of course, go on helping them with management and technological advice through the various advisory services. For example, Clause 60 of this Bill gives power to introduce livestock health schemes and thus a more positive approach to animal health. A number of the schemes that I have already described will also benefit the larger as well as the smaller farmer. For example, larger farmers who wish to amalgamate uncommercial units with their own land will be eligible for the amalgamation grants. Larger farmers can also benefit by our schemes to encourage farm recording and agricultural and horticultural co-operation.
Another proposal which will help the larger as well as the smaller farmer is the decision to continue and extend the Farm Improvement Scheme. The money allocated by Parliament for the present scheme is now almost fully committed. We think it would be wrong to allow the scheme, universally acknowledged as very successful, to lapse. Clause 29, therefore, provides another £80 million for its continuation and extension. The extension will increase the range of equipment eligible for grant. But to keep the annual outlay at about the same level, the rate of grant will be reduced from one-third to one-quarter.
We are also, for the first time, providing better facilities for agricultural credit for all farmers, big and small. Under Clause 58 we are seeking powers to underwrite guarantees given on loans made by banks to farmers and growers. In this way short and medium-term credit facilities will be extended to the tune of many millions of pounds. In addition, under Clause 57 we are substantially increasing the amount of Government advances to the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation and Scottish Agricultural Securities Corporation, so as to generate over £100 million extra long-term credit. All these are very important additional facilities to help the industry improve productivity.
Then there is the hill farmer. I have always believed in the potentialities of the hills and have wanted to do all that I reasonably could to help the hill farmer to overcome his special problems, and I have often been accused of having a bias towards upland development. I think it is right to have a concentration of effort here. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlton (Sir Kenneth Pickthorn) derides this. I would have thought I should have had his approval.

Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: Sir Kenneth Pickthorn (Carlton) rose——

Mr. Peart: Part III of the Bill——

Sir K. Pickthorn: The right hon. Gentleman must give way to me.

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Minister does not give way, the right hon. Gentleman must take his seat.

Sir K. Pickthorn: Mr. Speaker, I wish to know why I was picked out, for no reason at all. I am the last person to brawl or to be disorderly, but I think that when a Minister picks out one of his exiguous audience for insult, merely on the grounds that he does not like the expression on his face, the least he can do is to give the person picked out the chance to say what he thinks of the Minister.

Mr. Speaker: This is a courtesy rather than a point of order. I cannot rule on this. [HON. MEMBERS "Give way."]

Mr. Peart: I have given way quite a lot. Why should I give way to a Member who has quite a reputation for cynicism in this House?
Part III of the Bill takes an entirely fresh look at the problems of the hills. Since the war a good deal of public money has been put into hill farms—£30 million for rehabilitating existing farms and £4 million for the improvement of country roads. But more needs to be done. Our proposals fall into two distinct parts.
The first deals with the general problems of the hills. We are, under Clause 37, fulfilling our announced intention of renewing the power to pay hill cow and sheep subsidies, this time on a continuing basis. This and the remodelling of the hill sheep subsidy, which we did at the last Annual Review will, I hope, give confidence and stability to the hill farmer. We are also proposing to change the rules so as to encourage farmers to carry out worthwhile improvements without the fear of improving themselves out of the subsidy.
I know that there is concern about the position of livestock farmers on land outside the statutory definition of hill land, but which is subject to difficulties, in some ways similar, though less severe. I accept that this is an important question. My right hon. Friend and I are still examining, with the National Farmers' Unions, various suggestions they have made, and we hope to reach some final conclusions at the next Annual Review.
We also want to help hill farmers to get more out of their land—so as to carry the breeding stock essential to the livestock industry in this country. Clause 35 therefore provides grants for hill land improvements, which the White Paper said would be at the rate of 50 per cent. Power is also taken to give supplements on existing schemes. There is, I know, a very general feeling, which I share, that field and hill drainage is a key operation in improving the potentialities of hill land. We intend, therefore, to propose a supplement of 10 per cent. on field drainage projects on hill farms over and above the normal rate of 50 per cent. We also intend to propose that these grants for hill land improvements, including these supplements, should be paid on all eligible hill farms within the areas determined under the statutory definition, irrespective of the particular form of enterprise carried out.
These are our proposals for the hills in general. But in some parts of the hills and uplands the problems are so intractable that something more than inducements to private enterprise is needed. In such areas we propose to set up rural development boards. Their responsibility will be to promote in their areas the co-ordinated development of agriculture and forestry, together with such complementary uses as tourism. All the many bodies that have reviewed this problem over the past 20 years urged a new organisation with the necessary powers. We are proposing, not pious hopes, but action.
These boards will be composed predominantly of persons with experience and knowledge of agriculture and forestry. Many of them will be drawn from the areas concerned. Details of their constitution is given in Part II of Schedule 5. Under Clauses 39 to 50 the Ministers answerable for agriculture and forestry in the different countries of the United Kingdom are jointly responsible for the appointment of the boards and for giving any directions to them. The financial arrangements are necessarily centralised through one Department in England and Wales—my own—but, of course, I shall be co-operating closely with my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Wales and the Minister of Land and Natural Resources.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: On the question of tourism, does that mean that they will have some form of special control over national parks or ancient monuments?

Mr. Peart: Not precisely. It relates mainly to people who wish to holiday in the area which we have made a development area. Camping is an example. It also deals with farmers who have facilities for tourists.

Mr. John Farr: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Could he tell me if representatives of sporting bodies will be included on these boards?

Mr. Peart: I will consider that. In the main, I hope that the boards will represent mainly agricultural and forestry interests. After all, the boards' main function is to develop the areas from a land point of view. I will note that, but


in the main I would like them to be people from the sections that I have mentioned and, in particular, people who know the areas which concern those boards.
The boards will work in close association with local farming and forestry interests, with the local authorities, the county agricultural executive committees and other local public bodies. So clearly those interests will be considered. They will look at the area as a whole and draw up a programme of rural development for the general benefit of the area. They will work mainly by advice and persuasion, with the aid of financial assistance, under Clause 41 of the Bill, which has been deliberately drawn in wide terms, to help public and private effort to fulfil the programme.
The boards, however, must have minimum powers to prevent their programme from being frustrated unreasonably. I hope again that I have the agreement of hon. Members on that. The White Paper contemplated that the boards should have a power of what was then called "pre-emption". That is dealt with in Clause 43 of the Bill, and hon. Members will see that, as a result of the consultations that we have had with the various bodies concerned, we have made considerable modifications to our original ideas. In essence, the power now given to the hoards is to control the sale of agricultural land in their areas so as to ensure that such land is not sold for purposes contrary to the rural development programmes. Where a board is unwilling to give consent, the owner can offer the land for sale at the open market price to the board. But, if the owner wishes, he can withdraw from an offer to sell at any time even after a determination by the Lands Tribunal on price. Moreover, there are a number of important exemptions from the need to get the board's consent, such as transfers to close relatives.
A second power of control relates to private forestry. A board must coordinate its development programme with the Forestry Commission. It must also be able to make sure that private afforestation schemes do not cut across its programme. That is dealt with in Clause 46 by a licensing procedure. There are ample safeguards for the individual,

and a number of exemptions for certain kinds of tree planting.
Finally, under Clause 45 a board is given powers to promote within its area local reorganisation schemes—it may be in a single parish—to deal with the pattern of agricultural and forestry ownership. These must have the agreement of most of those interested in the land in the area. In other words, where a scheme has been drawn up for the benefit of a local community and most of that community wishes to see it implemented, I do not think it right for the scheme to be frustrated by a small number of objectors. There is full provision for the publication of proposals and a public inquiry, if necessary.

Mr. John M. Temple: The Minister mentioned rural development boards. Has he any idea how many rural development boards there will be throughout the country? I notice from paragraph 63 of the Explanatory Memorandum that the cost is estimated to be £500,000 per board.

Mr. Peart: I have in mind two places, but I have not finally made a decision. I want to be practical about it and go slowly. I do not want to rush in with too many. In my own mind, I have thought of two suitable areas, but I have not made a final decision. I will be very careful about it.

Mr. J. B. Godber: What size will they be?

Mr. Peart: Here I must take the advice of the farming interests concerned. There are hill areas which may be suitable, and it may be that many hon. Members can pick out different parts of the country in both England and Wales. I would rather not be pressed yet to make a decision on that, though. I have in mind certain areas which need special treatment. When I make a decision, I will announce it, but I must take the advice of all agricultural interests concerned about areas which may be suitable.

Mr. John Brewis: Could the right hon. Gentleman say why the Forestry Commission is not coming under the rural development boards and how they are to co-ordinate forestry planning?

Mr. Peart: The programme has to be agreed. I am not the forestry Minister, and I will consult with my colleagues on that. We need a balanced development plan in any particular area where both forestry and agriculture may be affected.
The provisions for these boards give an exciting new opportunity for dealing with some of the most difficult problem areas in the hills and uplands. Our approach is constructive and original. Many of the duties and powers that we are proposing have been given to similar bodies in Sweden and in France and are being used successfully there. We shall have to see how these proposals work out in practice here, and the Government would not propose to create more than one or two such boards in England and Wales in the first instance. As I have said, we must be practical.

Mr. Timothy Kitson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there is careful liaison between the National Parks Commission and these rural development boards? In quite a lot of what he has been saying there will be a conflict of interest.

Mr. Peart: I believe that any public bodies affected by a development programme when an area is chosen must be consulted and their views taken into account. That will be done.
In Scotland, the Highlands and Islands Development Board has recently been established. My right hon. Friend is empowered under the Bill to confer on the Board any of the functions and powers of a rural development board he may think necessary. If these bodies achieve the results that we expect, they will give a new sense of purpose to some of the remoter areas. I have tried to clear away some of the misunderstandings that there have been, and I believe that the House will give me its full support for what we have in mind.
I have now covered all the main proposals in the Bill for the development of agriculture. But no plan will succeed unless we give the best conditions that we can to the farm worker. Hon. Members on all sides of the House have on many occasions paid tribute, as I have myself, to their work and skill. Now we propose to do something practical to improve their conditions. Clause 61 em-

powers the agricultural wages boards to establish minimum rates of payment when a farm worker is off sick or injured. That will remedy a defect that has appeared in the original 1948 Act, and I think that no one will dispute its desirability.
The proposals that I have outlined have a wide scope and will have a far-reaching effect. I believe that their objectives will commend themselves to all parts of the House. They are designed to bring lasting benefit to all who care for and work on the land, as well as all concerned in the great meat industry, whether producers, distributors or consumers.
I would only say finally that I have seen a number of commentaries and papers from many responsible people calling this the most outstanding piece of agricultural legislation since the 1947 Agriculture Act. I consider it a great honour that it falls to me to present it to the House.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. J. B. Godber: I always like on these occasions to be able to congratulate a Minister on the presentation of a Bill. The introduction of a Bill is always an important matter. I can congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the lucidity with which he has spoken, and I think that we have listened with interest to what he has had to say. At times, however, it was a little difficult to follow him, because he was jumping about like a cat on hot bricks from one end of the Bill to another. While we on this side have studied this Bill and were able to follow him, there was some wonderment on the faces of hon. Members behind him. However, we shall try to elucidate the position for them a little more clearly as we go through the Bill today.
In his closing words, the right hon. Gentleman spoke bravely about this great new venture, but I am afraid that I must bring him down to earth fairly sharply and tell him bluntly that the Bill does not represent a new policy for agriculture. It is a collection of odds and ends and nothing more. It has a few good points in it—that I do not deny—it has some not nearly so good, and it has some which are thoroughly bad. The Minister would have been better advised to have called it the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which would have brought it down to its correct size.
My first general criticism is of the way in which this legislation has been brought forward, The White Papers were presented at the beginning of August and Parliament has had no opportunity of debating them. They were submitted and we have had the Recess in which to consider them, but this is the worst possible time in which to try to have consultations with farmers, or indeed, with industry generally. Of course, I absolve the Minister in as much as he was not to know that we would have one of the worst harvests on record, but, as Minister of Agriculture, he could reasonably be expected to know that a harvest usually occurs at this time of the year and that therefore there are normally few meetings of N.F.U. committees in August and September. It was by doing this and then bringing in the Bill for Second Reading so early in the new Session, having allowed so little time, that he has aroused a great deal of irritation. I have plenty of evidence which I could quote. I have all sorts of representations, including a letter which reached me just as I was coming into the Chamber——

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: Very convenient.

Mr. Godber: —from a member of the N.F.U. Council. I had no idea it was coming. In it, he makes exactly this point:
The Bill is being unfairly rushed through. We as farmers are not being allowed time.
This is the sort of representation which has been made time and again. If the Minister is not aware of this, he must be very ignorant of feelings among farmers——

Mr. Peart: I believe that there has been ample time for discussion. On many of the major issues, like meat marketing, we have had plenty of talk and discussion. The time has come for action.

Mr. Godber: That may be the Minister's view, and he is entitled to it, but I am entitled to remind the House of the view of those outside. Theirs is a view which should be given and for which there is ample evidence. The Minister has rushed this, and he has been unwise to do 30. This applies not only to farmers but to the other trade organisations affected by the Bill.
The Minister cannot claim that anything in the Bill is desperately pressing, so I do not understand why he has behaved in this way. I trust that he will now allow adequate time before starting on Committee stage of the Bill, because many Amendments will certainly have to be tabled. We shall also look for plenty of time in Committee.
My second general criticism is about the general approach of the Bill. It is primarily an enabling Bill—legislation by Regulation. I admit freely that my party when in Government indulged in legislation by Regulation from time to time, so there is no change of principle here. However, there is a substantial change of degree. I refer the House to the sweeping powers conferred, for instance, by Clause 9—about which we heard very little from the Minister—and by the Clauses dealing with the rural development boards. Furthermore, it is very difficult, when considering enabling legislation, to get a clear or a precise picture of what uses the Government proposes to make of the powers for which they are asking.
It is true that certain examples were given in the White Paper and we heard a certain number more from the Minister this evening, but not very many—and certainly not as many as we had hoped. In fairness, I would say that one saving grace is that the right hon. Gentleman has, in the main, relied in the Bill upon affirmative Regulations and not on negative ones. I think that that provided for under Clause 8 is a negative one, but in the main these are affirmative. For this small saving grace we are grateful.
Nevertheless, in several cases, neither affirmative nor negative Regulations will be necessary once the parent Orders have gone through—particularly the Meat Commission development schemes and the rural development boards. Under Clause 9(7,a), once the Commission is empowered under a scheme it can delegate these powers to others, and there appears to be no restriction of any sort on whom these powers will be delegated to. This is legislation by remote control, not just by Regulation, and is something which we shall study very carefully in Committee.
I would make a general point about the financial effect of the Bill. There


is a large number of different financial provisions of which, I suppose, the extension of the farm improvement scheme is the largest and the farm structure proposals the second largest. We are told that the latter proposals are outside the Price Review calculations, but I should like to be told something about the various financial provisions as a whole. We want to see the picture complete. Which of these financial provisions fall within the Price Review and which fall outside?
What is the estimated annual addition to Governmental spending on agriculture within the Price Review calculations and what is the additional estimated increase outside those calculations? In addition, various levies are raised under the Bill. Can we be given some idea of what, in total, they are likely to amount to? May we be told whether the charges of these levies as they impose on farmers will count as increased costs for Price Review purposes? Perhaps we may be told something about these points at the end of the debate.
I have said that the Bill does not represent a new policy, and indeed it does not. There is a section on livestock and meat marketing, one on farm structure and improvements, one on hill land and rural development boards, one on cooperation and a very mixed portion at the end, some of which covers some very worthwhile matters like the keeping of business records and the rate of sick pay for agricultural workers. There are good things and poor in the Bill, but there is no coherent thread running through the Measure as a whole. There is nothing to tell us clearly what is the Minister's and Government's general approach to agriculture at present.
I suppose the Minister would say that that is to be found in the agricultural section of the National Plan. In that case, I invite him to arrange for the House to have a debate on the agricultural proposals in that Plan. We should like that very much indeed. There are many question marks surrounding these proposals——

Mr. Pearl: If the right hon. Member wants such a debate so strongly, why not use his influence to arrange for a Supply Day on the subject?

Mr. Godber: If the Government have a policy on this—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—I am proposing to answer: hon. Members should not be so impatient. If the Government have a policy of which they are proud, it is normal for the Government to find time for their own Measures. If they are not proud of it, we take note of that fact—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister must behave as well as the back benchers do.

Mr. Godber: I am sorry if I am tempting the Minister into this behaviour, but I think that we have elucidated that point—that the Government are not very proud of those proposals. However, we shall look forward at some stage to hearing more from them about it: there are so many points to be answered, for instance, the farming community are waiting to be told how the Minister defines the "major part" of our food requirements up to 1970, which is to be provided by British farmers. Is it going to be 99 per cent.? Is it going to be 51 per cent.? What is it going to be? I hope that the Government will give us more details about this.
We must ask how these proposals further the aims of the National Plan. Generally speaking, I would say that it is questionable as to the extent to which increased production or efficiency will flow from the operation of the Bill. We shall have cuts in farm improvement schemes. We shall have the Meat Commission, in a form in which we shall discuss in great detail in Committee. We shall have Government control of large tracts of agricultural land, both hill and vale. I suggest that all this will hardly encourage initiative, and will certainly not encourage individual enterprise on the part of the farming community.
I now turn to the main provisions of the Bill. Part I deals with the establishment of the Meat and Livestock Commission, and follows in many respects the recommendations of the Verdon-Smith Report. The Minister would have been wiser to avoid the word "Commission" in the name of the body. I noticed that he was a little chary in one or two remarks that he made in his opening speech. Perhaps he remembered some of his earlier speeches about a Meat Commission. But he has been honest


enough to tell us that he has changed his mind, and when anyone tells us that we are ready to listen to him. We shall hope to change his mind a great deal more before the Bill goes through the House.
Clause 2 deals with the three main committees to be set up. I am glad that the Minister has included provision for executive as well as advisory duties for these bodies. This is a useful proposal. It is clear from the First Schedule that the chairmen of these committees will be members of the Commission, but I do not see it stated anywhere whether it will be possible for members of the Commission other than the chairmen of committees, to have membership of committees as well as being on the Commission. I do not know whether it is the intention to limit this provision merely to chairmen.
One of my hon. Friends took up this point about the chairmanship of committees earlier. It is true that the chairmen, as members of the Commission, shall have "no substantial financial interest". Those are the words in the Bill. The other members presumably may have such financial interest. It is not laid down as to their position as members of the committees. I wonder what the intention is. I presume that it is to have the chairmen as links between the Commission and the various committees.
We are told that the production and distribution committees will be large bodies, consisting of a chairman plus at least 18 members. It will be necessary for many different interests to be represented on the Distribution Committee, and I am sure that the Minister has already come up against the problem of sharing out. All those Members who have been connected with administration know the difficulty of getting a fair balance. Perhaps we may be told more in Committee as to the break-down of this committee. We should like to know, in order to satisfy ourselves whether the various interests will be represented in a reasonable balance, bearing in mind their interests in the different aspects of this matter. I do not ask for an answer tonight, but this is a point on which we should like some further elucidation at the appropriate time.
Clauses 5 and 6 are of considerable interest, and we shall hope to be told—

again in Committee—a lot more about the way in which these provisions will be implemented. We shall want to know about the practicability of the requirement which appears in Clause 6 for marking carcases in such a way that the mark will not be defaced or removed before the carcase or the part-carcase reaches the retailer. That is the difficulty; carcases may be split up before reaching some of the retailers. There can be a real technical difficulty here, and some thought should be given to the matter.
Clauses 7 and 8 deal with the retail side, and should prove of real help to both the retail trade and, even more, the housewife. In particular, I welcome Clause 8(2,b), which refers to a requirement for
information to he given, in the case of meat exposed for sale, both by showing the prices of particular pieces of meat and also by showing the weight of particular pieces of meat.
This is a very useful provision. Nevertheless, I must enter a caveat in relation to everything concerning meat. Difficulty is caused because meat and bone vary greatly in their proportions in a joint. The degree of safeguard achieved by providing that the prices shall be shown may be somewhat misleading if a housewife does not herself judge the proportions of meat and bone in a joint. The extent to which housewives will be safeguarded in this matter may be overstressed.
The Minister ought not to be surprised to know that I look upon Clause 9 as a most obnoxious one. I ask him what its purpose is. He said very little about it in his speech. I thought that he hurried over his description of this part of the Bill. Why are these sweeping powers required? In subsection (2) we are given three classifications. It would seem that these could restrict the production of farms and prevent farmers from switching to livestock production. It applies also to other sections of the meat trade.
Subsection (6) talks of imposing quotas upon producers, and in subsections (15) and (16) the Minister seems himself to be somewhat scared of the powers that he is given, because he provides various safeguards, including the question of going to the High Court. This seems clearly to show that he is worried about the proposals that he has inserted in the Bill. He must tell the House much more


about what he proposes to do with these powers before we shall be prepared to grant them.
I deplore particularly the idea of giving such sweeping powers without having any idea of what is involved and without being able effectively to control the position once the Clause becomes law. It is true that schemes will be subject to the affirmative procedure. As the House knows, however, there is no chance of amending a scheme under this procedure; it must either be accepted or rejected in totality. These are powers which Parliament will always grant to the Executive in emergencies, but Parliament ought not to be called upon to pass a Clause in this form. I hope that the Minister will spell out more precisely what powers he wants, and the purposes for which he wants them. We can then decide on the real issue. This demand for a blank cheque is quite unjustified. The Minister has not justified it this afternoon.
In addition to affecting farmers, these powers may extend to the closing-down of slaughterhouses and even processing plants. Compensation for such closures will be raised from the industry itself. If these powers are invoked and there is a closing down, compensation is paid by means of a levy. There will be a separate levy, and it will be provided for by the industry and not by the Government. That being so, we must be given much more information about this, and we shall return to this point in much more detail in Committee.

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom: Will the hon. Gentleman elaborate a little on his fears concerning Clause 9? He has mentioned the slaughterhouses, which are at present covered by an Act of Parliament. I should like to know why he fears the effects of this clause.

Mr. Godber: The hon. Member and I sat for many months in Committee on the Slaughterhouses Bill. These matters have been debated at great length and I do not propose to go into the speeches which have been made. My fears at the moment are fears of the unknown, which are the greatest fears of all. The Minister has not put into the Bill what he wants to do, and we want to know what he does propose to

do. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) should be asking his right hon. Friend these questions and not me. Let us discover from the Minister what the powers are for. If they are justified the House will give them to him. but not otherwise.
Clause 12 deals with the levy and the financial activities of the Commission. The intention appears to be that the levy shall apply only to home-produced meat. It is true that many of the activities of the Commission relate to production in this country, but Clauses 7 and 8 apply to all meat. Is it not fair, therefore, that imported meat should bear some levy as well? I am not suggesting a rate similar to that for home-produced meat, but I take the view that some contribution should come from this source.
In that respect, the Verdon-Smith Committee was explicit. In paragraph 851 of its Report, the Committee stated:
For home production, a levy, varying with the type of animal, should be charged on every animal slaughtered.
For imports, a comparable levy should be charged at the ports.
Nothing could be more specific than that. I am asking, not even for a comparable levy, but for a levy on imported meat. It is strange that this has not been provided for.
On Clause 15, it would again be helpful to have an idea of the levy which is involved. We should know more about this whole question of levies throughout the whole of Part I of the Bill. The totality of these levies could be very great.
The Minister tried to help us in one respect today when he attempted to give a figure about the effect of the levy on the carcase. This, he told us, would work out at per pound. I should like to know whether he was talking about the point of retail sale or of the carcase, because in cutting up the carcase there is a substantial loss. If it is to be ¼d. at the first point, it will be substantially more by the time that it reaches retail circles.

Mr. Peart: It is at the point of retail.

Mr. Godber: So that is the final figure. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. That clears up at least one point, but there are the other points concerning the


levy about which we should like to know more.
In Clause 19(1) a sweeping power is being given to the Minister. I should like to ask this specific question. Is it, as I hope and trust that it is, limited by the provisions of Part I of Schedule 1, which spells out the powers of the Commission? Does Part I of Schedule 1 bite on Clause 19(1)? This is something which would help to reassure us concerning these very wide powers which are being provided. From what I have said in regard to Part I of the Bill, it will be clear that we shall want to know a great deal more about many of these matters.
Having complained about a good deal of what is in Part I, I now, for a change, complain about something which is not in Part I of the Bill but which should be there. I refer to the lack of provision for the contract selling of fatstock. Paragraphs 748 and 749 of the Verdon-Smith Report dealt with this subject and perhaps I may quote a little from the latter. Its opening words state:
We consider that the growth in contracts at the first-hand level is having some beneficial effects on fatstock marketing".
It states in paragraph (b):
Reductions in both sellers' and buyers' costs should result from contracts, since regular arrangements lead to economies in the cost of selling and buying, some risks are lessened, transport arrangements can be regularly coordinated, and losses, wastage and delays can be reduced. Contracts therefore offer some important marketing advantages.
That is what the Verdon-Smith Committee said, yet we find nothing about it in the Bill. I do not suggest that the Commission itself should enter into contracts but it should be in a position to take positive action to stimulate contract selling. The nearest that I can find to this in the Bill is in paragraph 8 of Part I of Schedule 1, which concerns itself purely with advice. There could be something to be said for setting up something comparable, for instance, to the Cereal Marketing Authority for organising contracts in advance. This would have been a practical way in which to help orderly marketing. It is a great pity that opportunity has not been taken to do something of this sort.
Part II of the Bill, dealing with farm structure, marks an interesting new development. It has been widely discussed

since the proposals first emerged in the White Paper. [Interruption.] The Joint Parliamentary Secretary makes an interesting point. There has been time for discussion, but not for the detailed consultation which was necessary. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It is no good the Treasury Bench simply echoing "No" in that childish way, because they know perfectly well that this protest has been made from all sections, not merely from the farming community, but from other sections also.
Therefore, while I say that this matter has been widely discussed, it has not been discussed in the form of consultation. In spite, however, of the degree of discussion which has taken place, not even the Minister would claim that it has met with enthusiastic response. There is no doubt that the whole question of farm size and structure has been exercising the minds of those concerned with agriculture, both in this country and elsewhere, for some years.
Modern farming techniques often require larger units for economic production. Indeed, during the last 12 years there has been a reduction of 50,000 in the number of farms of less than 50 acres in Britain, and, of course, there has been a rise in some of the larger farms. [Interruption.] I hear somebody say "Good". I agree; that is right.
We on this side made some small provision—I do not pretend that it was other than small—to assist amalgamation in our 1957 Act. I mention this only to show that at that time we were thinking similarly that amalagamation should be encouraged. I confirm that we on this side are still in favour of amalgamation as one part of the various changes that have to come about in agriculture. We regard this as one part and co-operation as another part. I was in agreement with something that the Minister said on this aspect this afternoon. I shall not go far along that road with him, but I thought it only fair to say this.
The amalgamation must, however, be voluntary and there must be no element of coercion in any form. That, I understand, is what Clause 25 provides for. I do not, therefore, criticise that Clause as such. When I turn, however, to Schedule 4, which contains the provisions affecting this aspect, I have some criticisms to make.


Schedule 4 specifies a 60-year period to be covered by this provision. Without more adequate safeguard for the individual than I see at present, I regard this period as far too long. Particularly do I say this when I look at the penal sanctions—penal is the word used in the Bill—which are provided for at the foot of page 86 of the Bill. We shall certainly look for drastic revision of this.
I should like to give the House an example of my fears in this regard. Let us suppose that a unit that has been amalgamated lies alongside a main road. The owner of the amalgamated unit might be asked, for instance, as he could well be, by an oil company to sell off half an acre for a filling station. This would in no way invalidate it as an agricultural unit, yet it would be in breach of the provisions of the Schedule. Unless the owner has the written consent of the Minister, he would be subject to the provisions of paragraph 7 of Schedule 4 if he sold off even half an acre.
It could be argued that in such a case the Minister's consent would be forthcoming. Such consent would not be given immediately, however—it always takes time—and the oil company might prefer to go across the road to a neighbouring large farmer who was not subject to these provisions. The chance of a lucrative sale, which could have benefited the first farmer and helped him to put up new farm buildings, could be lost. That is merely one instance. Many other examples could be given.
It is certainly right that amalgamations which have attracted the grant of public money should not readily be subjected to frivolous fragmentation, but these penal provisions go too far and could well defeat the purpose of the Bill. The Minister must face the fact that they could well frighten off people from taking advantage of his scheme. If they fear that they are to have this penal provision hanging around their necks for a long period, it could stop people from taking advantage of these provisions.
Clause 26 covers grants to farmers who give up their units. As the Minister said, there are no figures in the Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman gave us his own figures in the White Paper originally and he has invited us now to give other figures ourselves. In considering whether the

figures which he originally gave in the White Paper are adequate, one has to ask what precisely is their purpose. Is it to bring about a more rapid giving up of holdings by those with small units, or merely to cushion and to give some element of support in old age to those who are giving up anyway? We have to be clear about which of these is correct.
Under the White Paper's proposals, a man with a 50-acre farm who is over 65, or 55 if he has opted for the annuity, would get a pension of just under £3 a week. If this is a supplement to his savings and retirement pension, it may just make the difference to make his retirement more tolerable. Therefore, if it is the second alternative which I gave, namely, of cushioning and giving some element of support, it is probably worthwhile. However, if the Minister wants to bring about a substantial speeding up of amalgamations among those who are not yet thinking in terms of retirement or of moving into something else, I venture to doubt whether the rates which he proposes will achieve any significant result.
We are told that the annual cost is expected to rise to £15 million to £17 million a year. As an act of social policy, it may be fully justified, but if it is to be judged as an act of agricultural policy I doubt whether it will provide very much greater impetus to the pace at which small farms are, even now, being given up. We do not oppose it in principle, but we shall watch with keen interest the extent to which it is made use of and the extent to which it accelerates the present decline in the number of small farms.
We are told that the cost of this provision is outside the aggregate of Price Review moneys. That is important, because it is a substantial sum. But I am bound to ask: if this is so, what quid pro quo is the Treasury calling for from Agricultural Ministers for this generosity? [Interruption.] The Minister may well look round hurriedly to see whether there is a Treasury Minister on the Bench. Perhaps we shall not get an answer today. Presumably we shall have to wait until the Price Review for the answer to that question.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: If the Price Review is, presumably, to be just before the next election, I doubt


very much whether we shall get the answer then.

Mr. Godber: I am sorry that my hon. Friend is so pessimistic. I hoped that we would have a General Election long before then. However, I take my hon. Friend's point. We shall be very interested to see how this works out.
We shall certainly want to question the powers in Clause 28 which enable the Minister to buy land for amalgamation and other purposes. This could turn out to be a very wasteful and expensive project indeed. We on this side doubt very much the wisdom or the need for this provision, and we think that the Government should have second thoughts about it. It will be our objective to seek to eliminate or drastically to curtail this power when we come to it.
Turning to the farm improvement scheme, I say straight away that we deplore the cut in rate from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent. We condemn this. If I may interject a personal note, I was Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry when the scheme went through the House, and I have always been proud of having been associated with it. The scheme has proved itself to be such an excellent scheme. I very much regret that an attempt should be made to scale it down in this way. The Minister says that the amount is the same, but I beg leave to doubt whether this is so. We are told that it is estimated that it will still be worth £11 million a year in grants and that this is in line with the recent rate.
However, the Minister was kind enough to let us have a Press hand-out on the farm improvement scheme—it is dated 17th November—when the Bill came out. There are some very interesting figures at the end of it, which are given in cumulative totals. [Interruption.] Give the Minister a copy so that he can follow all this. I would particularly refer to the last two columns. One is in respect of grant commitment and the other in respect of grant aid. The grant commitment amounts will fall for payment some time later.
Therefore, dealing with the figures in the column headed "Grant Paid", when one deducts the figures, it gives a rise in the rate of payment under the scheme o'er the last four years of £9,172,000,

£10,317,000, £10,260,000, and £11,491,000. This shows a steady growth year by year and it has reached almost £11½ million in the year ending March last. Underneath it says:
Approvals are at present running at about £37 million a year
in terms of a one-third grant rate—that is, £12⅓ million in the present year, another substantial jump of nearly £1 million during the current year. It goes on to say, to emphasise the point even more:
It is estimated that at mid-November, 1965, the face value of approvals and applications under consideration is equivalent to some £87 million in terms of grant at the one-third rate.
That was only in November. Presumably, when we reach March, this will throw up a figure substantially more than £37 million, which would be one-third of the figure which will appear in totality in place of that £87 million. The total impression is a grant rising with each succeeding year, and we shall see well over £12 million in the present year with those already in the pipeline and it will have risen even more. The Minister says that, under the revised scheme, the figure will be running at about £11 million, but I do not consider that this is a full replacement of what is being taken away.
This is a most important point, particularly because the figures show that the need for the farm improvement scheme on the old basis is as great as ever, otherwise there would not be a rising curve. If this were a falling curve, it would be a different picture and we might sympathise with the line which the Minister is taking. But it is nonsense to say that there is justification for immediate amendment of the scheme. Although some farmers may benefit from widening its scope, others may be deterred from applying for its benefits, and they are those who have taken the longest time in coming round to it and who need it most. Therefore, this is a retrograde and regressive step which the Minister is taking.
The other side of that same Press notice refers to the operative dates. It says:
Applications made after today"—
that is 17th November—
can only be considered under the new Scheme and cannot be approved or grant-aided until the Bill becomes law. But in appropriate cases the Ministry will be prepared to agree to a start of work at the applicant's own risk".


Why "at the applicant's own risk"? Is it because of the propriety of Parliamentary approval, or is it something more significant and ominous? If, as a result of the step which the Minister has taken, he has caused this upset in the scheme, then I query the wisdom of putting in those words, making things more difficult for farmers who apply for the benefits of the scheme. As I have said, the arguments for extending its scope may be real, but they do not justify the cut in the rate, and we shall oppose it most hotly at the appropriate time.
Clause 34 contains two very important definitions which were the subject of comment particularly by the N.F.U. in its circular on the Bill. The union calls attention to the need
within the overall structure of agriculture for the family farmer to continue to play a vital role.
It considers very important the definition of a commercial unit which could exclude a certain number of family farms. I had hoped that the Minister would have said more about this this afternoon, and I hope we shall hear more about it, because it is a very important point. I do not object to the definition of the two types of unit, but we want an assurance that the introduction of this new concept is not going to mean the exclusion of those in the intermediate unit stage from various provisions and supports to which we as well as the N.F.U. think they are entitled.
Part 3 of the Bill, which contains proposals for hill land, centres very largely around the setting up of rural development boards which, as set out in the Bill, we view with considerable dislike indeed. We on this side of the House are in favour of help for the upland areas, but I must tell the Minister that we are highly suspicious of some of the very sweeping powers that are proposed in this part of the Bill. I would not disagree with some of the functions of these boards as set out in Clause 40(1), but I am very dubious indeed as regards the powers it is proposed to give the boards as a whole. Clause 43(1), for instance, contains a very sweeping provision which could delay the sale of land for months, and might cause hardship in many cases.
It is, however, the power in Clause 45(7) for the compulsory acquisition of land which particularly alarms me. We

are opposed to this power. We shall want to know a lot more about how it will be used, and what will happen to land that is so acquired. Will the board continue to own it? Will the board be responsible for farming the land, or will it resell it to somebody else, perhaps a neighbour of the previous owner? It may be argued that this will be a reserve power, which will seldom be used, but it will be a very real power, and Parliament should be very grudging in giving power of this kind. We see the reconstitution of the old farming problems of the Land Commission which we inherited from the previous Labour Government. All these dangers arise in relation to these powers.
Clause 46, on the control of afforestation, is also very far-reaching. I presume that the Forestry Commission has been fully consulted on this, but what about the private forestry owners? Have their views been ascertained as well?
Those are points about which I think we need to know a great deal more. I do not propose to go in detail into this part of the Bill because I have dwelt at length on some other parts of it, and I do not wish to speak for too long, but this should not be taken to mean that we are not deeply suspicious of some of the powers in these Clauses, and in particular the ones which I have noted.
In general, we welcome the powers in Part IV of the Bill for the extension of co-operative activities. We note with interest the proposal to set up a Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation, but what will happen to AMDEC? I am told that half its functions will be taken over. What will happen in regard to the rest? This seems to be an untidy situation, and I hope that we shall be told a good deal more about this aspect of the matter.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent), who has done so much work in this field, will, I hope, have an opportunity of speaking in this debate, because, as chairman of this body, he has great knowledge of the subject. I hope that we shall hear more about what is going to be the position of AMDEC. If its powers are going to be emasculated, or its duties taken away, this would seem to be an unsatisfactory way of dealing with a body which has done a great deal of good work.
Coming to a later part of the Bill, we have the proposals for finance, and I listened carefully to what the Minister said in regard to the facilities referred to in Clause 58. I do not take such a rosy view of them as the Minister does, because the provisions in Clause 58 do not give cheap credit. All that they do is to underwrite the liability of a commercial bank which lends at current interest rates, so the right hon. Gentleman should be more concerned with what his right hon. Friend the Chancellor is doing about interest rates, which is what is having a real effect on farmers' credit at the present time. This is what matters to farmers, rather than making these provisions which may have been right in the special conditions of horticulture, but it does not necessarily mean that they should be carried over into agriculture which has the safeguards of the Price Review behind it.
I would give a general welcome to the various other miscellaneous provisions in Part V of the Bill, and in particular I endorse Clause 59 with the assistance that it gives for keeping farm business records. I hope that this Clause will proceed to the Statute Book and will be made the fullest use of.
There is one strange thing about this Clause. When one looks at the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, one sees that paragraph 67 on page xi says:
Grant payments for farm business records under Clause 59 are forecast at £750,000 annually when the scheme is fully operative and the administrative cost at £100,000 annually.
That is an extraordinarily high administrative cost in relation to the expenditure. It is £1 for every £7 10s. in grant. I think that we should be told why the administrative costs of this aspect are so much higher than administrative costs generally in regard to grant provisions. I hope that the Minister will be able to deal with this point when he replies. We want to support this proposal, because we think it is right, but it seems that the administrative costs are unusually high.
The only other Clause to which I propose to refer is Clause 61. I was glad to hear what the Minister said about it, and I endorse his remarks. I think that farmers generally are generous in their treatment of employees who fall

sick, and I am sure they will not resent this statutory provision. I hope that both sides of the House will welcome this as a sound measure. Presumably when this provision is brought in it will rank as an added cost for Price Review purposes, and I think we should know where we stand in regard to this sort of thing.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In view of what my right hon. Friend has said—which I fully support—about this change in the farm improvement grant being limited only to one quarter, may I ask whether he is aware that those words occur in the Money Resolution, which, in the normal way, we would discuss after the Second Reading debate? I understand that there may be some special arrangement later this evening, and I wonder whether my right hon. Friend would consider asking the Government not to ask the House to consider the Money Resolution this evening, so that Amendments can be put down and discussed?

Mr. Godber: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I believe that it is desired to make an important statement later this evening on some other matter.

Mr. Peart: Not that I know of.

Mr. Godber: The Minister claims no knowledge of it, but the information has reached me via unusual channels and it may reach him through the usual channels in due course. I think that there is a desire to make a very important statement at Ten o'clock this evening. I think that what my hon. Friend has said is right and reasonable. I hope that the Money Resolution will be put down for discussion on another day. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider this urgently so as not to inconvenience other aspects of our discussion.

Mr. Peart: I shall consider it.

Mr. Godber: All in all, this Bill compares unfavourably even with the curate's egg. It has a few good parts but many bad ones. It is a complicated Bill. It is bound to take a long time in Committee, and I am sure that the Minister will agree that that is going to be necessary. Because of that, it is unfortunate that the changes in the farm improvements scheme have been included in the


Bill. Had they appeared in a separate Bill, we could have dealt with them expeditiously. We could have restored the rate of grant to 33⅓ per cent. and put the Measure on the Statute Book straightaway, but, as it is, there is bound to be substantial delay in the payment for farm improvement scheme projects, and in agreeing new proposals due to the time before the Bill can reach the Statute Book. For that the Minister, and the Minister alone, must accept responsibility. He has chosen to include this in a very complicated Measure. He must have realised at the time what he was doing, and therefore the responsibility for the delay must be laid at his door, and at no one else's.
With its few good points, and many bad ones, the Bill does not point any clear way to the future of agriculture in this country. It may add certain grants, but it reduces others. It provides for levies, for restrictions on farmers' freedom, and on their ability to exercise their own judgment. We shall seek to amend the Bill and to improve it, and it is sadly in need of improvement. My judgment of the Minister on his showing at this stage is that he has failed to live up to the promises he made when in Opposition, and during the last Election, and, further, his lack of policy and direction whilst in office is harmful to a great industry which deserves better.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Bert Hazell: First, I should like to congratulate the Minister on presenting the Bill today. It is a major Measure. Indeed, as the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) said, it is a combination of Measures. From the first page to the last the Bill offers a very wide scope which must be of great benefit in the long run to the industry in which we are all so greatly interested.
Before dealing with specific items within the Bill, there are one or two brief general observations which I should like to make. Agriculture in this country has a remarkable record of achievement. No one can deny that. I am sure that that view has often been expressed in the House. In the past 20 years or so the output from British farms has been amazing. However one measures output, it must compare very favourably

indeed with the agricultural output of any other agricultural nation, and it must also compare very favourably with the increased output of industry in general. I should like, therefore, to offer congratulations to all concerned.
As all of us know who are interested in the subject, agriculture is not run on factory lines. We cannot predetermine what our output will eventually be. We must rely very largely upon weather conditions, apart from the application of science to the industry. Even this year we have had some bitter disappointments. There was early promise of an abundant harvest, but while I believe that it will be found that output is above average, nevertheless a good deal of loss has been sustained owing to weather conditions which no one could predict. If one looks at the fields at the moment one is concerned about the harvesting of some of the root crops in view of the unusually severe weather conditions which we have had so early in the sugar beet harvesting season. All praise must be given to those who are seeking to harvest the sugar beet crop in fields which are either covered with snow or severely flooded. We must also give full praise to those who are toiling in the snow drifts to protect the sheep on the hillsides and over the vast areas of the hill country.
In my opinion this combination of measures marks the greatest piece of legislation on agriculture presented to the House since the 1947 Act. Agriculture has a proud record of achievement not only directly as an industry but because of its impact indirectly on industry in general. The prosperity of agriculture and the security which the 1947 and 1957 Acts bestowed have enabled considerable investment to be made in agriculture. Coupled with this measure of prosperity and security, a reducing manpower force has encouraged an ever-expanding engineering industry to develop, and this industry has played a great part in our exports because agricultural engineering equipment and machinery represent important exports which enable us to pay for the imports of raw materials and food which we require.
The Government have always shown their desire to encourage our agriculture still further. Whatever may be said—and this charge has been made from


time to time—about the Labour Party being largely an industrial party, the fact remains that even when the Labour Party formed a minority administration, the interests of agriculture were clearly borne in mind. In presenting the Bill my right hon. Friend is following well in the footsteps of his predecessor the Minister in the 1945–51 Government. I am sure all hon. Members cordially welcome these bold plans which are placed before us.
Part I of the Bill deals with the marketing of meat and livestock. This fulfils a promise which we made during the General Election campaign when we said that we should introduce at the earliest opportunity effective marketing arrangements for the main agricultural crops. Last Session we passed the Cereals Marketing Act. This is followed by Part I of the Bill. Since the late 1920s, and right up to the Verdon-Smith Report, various people have looked at the problem of meat marketing. It falls to the Government and my right hon. Friend to present to the House positive measures to deal with this problem. The Bill does not limit its responsibilities to marketing but covers the wide field of production, distribution and consumer interest.
I am delighted to note in Part I that there is to be a two-way flow of information to those responsible under the Bill—from the committees to the Commission and from the Commission to the committees. I am sure that this two-way flow will be of inestimable value in working out the details of the measures which will follow from the discussions which will take place.
I must, however, make one reservation or express some minor disappointment to the Minister in that, in Clause 9—to which the right hon. Member for Grantham paid a great deal of attention—he did not take the opportunity of reserving the right to deal with imports should the problem arise in future. No doubt my right hon. Friend feels that at present it would be unwise for him to include measures of this nature within the Bill, but it might have been a good thing if he had sought to secure reserve powers within the ambit of Clause 9. I know that he will be advised on matters of supplies, because provision is made for this within the Bill. Advice will be given by the Commission. But if

he were advised in due course by the Commission to take such action it would mean, as I understand the Bill, that he would have to come to the House with a new Measure, and this could cause considerable delay. By presenting the Bill in five Parts presumably the Minister feels that he will have far more time at his disposal to get all five through the House. To have to come to the House with another Measure to deal with this problem might mean that he would be faced with difficulties of Parliamentary time. This is one reason why I should like to see included in the Bill the reserve powers to which I referred.
I am greatly interested in Part II of the Measure. Before I was privileged to be elected to represent my constituency in the House I worked for many years in the County of Yorkshire. I am, therefore, fully conversant with the problems which face smallholders, a great many of whom are in the West Riding around the industrial belt of the Pennines.
I spoke of the high level of efficiency which already exists in the agricultural industry compared with other agricultural countries, but one recognises that, however efficient our industry may be, there is always room for improvement. My right hon. Friend gave a number of statistics to indicate the size of some holdings. Hon. Members may like to be reminded that there are more than 96,000 holdings with, on average, only 11 acres each, too small even for inclusion in the small farmers scheme. There are another 53,500 holdings with an average acreage of 31 and more than 71,000 holdings of 68 acres on average.
It is true that some of these small units are run on a part-time basis, but I have knowledge of smallholdings in my constituency comprised of only 11 or 12 acres which provide full-time employment for the men and their families. Acreages do not of themselves necessarily determine viable units. One must take into account many other factors, primarily the quality of the land, the type of holding and the ability of the individual to manage it.
I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that any scheme concerning farm structure was a voluntary matter. I hope that the emphasis on voluntary amalgamation will be spelt out loud and clear,


because there are many men in occupation of small units who are extremely concerned about the future, while others who are seeking to become occupiers of smallholdings as a means of advancing their way of life are also apprehensive about their future possibilities.
The fear has been expressed that once the Bill becomes law some large-scale farmers or landowners might seek to exercise pressure on those who occupy small units. Therefore, the fact that we are considering voluntary amalgamations cannot be emphasised too strongly, if only to reassure existing smallholders and prospective small farmers that they need not fear absorption by large farmers or landowners.
Despite the vast number of small units throughout the country, amalgamation when properly applied on a purely voluntary basis must be a good thing in this age of mechanisation. The Bill will not do anything new in this direction, although it will, without doubt, accelerate the process of amalgamation. I say that because in recent years almost 3,000 small units have gone out of existence. The Bill will provide financial encouragement to those who wish to give up their small units and, as I say, it will probably accelerate the process of amalgamation for which the Government are hoping.
While I have some remarks to make about local authority-owned small units, I appreciate that the Wise Committee is considering this matter and that we must await its Report to see what pattern is proposed. This is an important aspect because such is the extent of smallholdings controlled by local authorities that in the County of Norfolk alone there are more than 400 applications for such holdings. I am sure that it is not the intention of the Government to do anything which would deny people the opportunity to achieve their ambition to become smallholders on local authority land. We must realise that some of the most efficient farmers started in a small way. Many of them acquired small units from local authorities and, as a result of their initiative, enterprise and knowledge of the industry, were ultimately able to secure viable larger units.

Mr. Godber: I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman's argument,

but when he says that he is sure that his right hon. Friend will not contemplate changes, is he saying that with knowledge or in an interrogatory sense?

Mr. Hazen: As I explained, we must await the Report of the Wise Committee. No one is in a position to determine the recommendations which will come from its deliberations. I can only express my hope that full encouragement will be given to those wishing to acquire smallholdings from local authorities when the Report is ultimately to hand.
The aspects of the Bill which deal with co-operation are to be welcomed because for many years we have been stressing the value of co-operation among farmers. One of the greatest problems confronting the small farmer today is that in many instances he is over-capitalised; that he cannot utilise his equipment to its full capacity. Thus, the sharing of equipment as well as sharing in the buying of supplies is essential, and co-operation of this sort must be good for both the small farmer and the economy of the nation. The steps envisaged for encouraging cooperation are greatly to be welcomed, and I hope that small farmers will take full advantage of the opportunities that will ultimately be available to them.
I hope that farmers co-operating in the sale and purchase of supplies and the utilisation of mechanical equipment will not lose sight of the need to co-operate in the use of labour. In recent years there has been a continual movement of labour from the land to our major industries, and the National Plan itself envisages a continuation of that drift. Between 30th September, 1964, and 30th September, 1965, no fewer than 20,600 workers left agriculture, a rate of movement similar to that which has gone on for the past 10 or 12 years. I have no doubt that this drift will continue for a few more years yet, and as that will leave us with a very small labour force it will be necessary, if that force is to be used to the best advantage, for a measure of cooperation to be applied in this direction. Experiments are already taking place. In the areas surrounding the industrial cities, agricultural manpower is already at a low ebb, and if that movement goes much further the co-operative use of labour will become an absolute necessity.
With agricultural manpower continuing to run down, the small force remaining will have to be highly trained. I therefore hope that, in the knowledge that this development is bound to grow, the industry will do everything possible to create an industrial training board, so that those left in agriculture may be highly skilled to apply themselves to the changing techniques that will come about. Along with adequate training through the industrial training board there will have to be built up a wages structure that will convince the agricultural worker that his future arid his earnings can, and will, compare with the future and earnings available in industry in general. Unless that is done, agriculture's desire to increase production and productivity will be hampered by lack of sufficient men to handle the machinery and equipment.
I was delighted to hear the right hon. Member for Grantham welcome Clause 61, which amends the Agricultural Wages Act, 1948. Having been engaged in wage negotiations at national level for over 20 years, I know that when the 1948 Act was passed the then Minister was quite certain that it enabled the Agricultural Wages Board to negotiate a basis for the payment of wages during sickness. The employer and the trade union representatives on the Wages Board had almost reached agreement when it was found that such an agreement could not be legally enforced under the Act.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the best farmers do make contributions to their sick workers—that is generally recognised and appreciated by their employees—but among so many farmers there must be some black sheep. This Amendment of the 1948 Act will, therefore, be generally welcomed, but the basis of sick pay and its duration will have to be determined by the employer and trade union representatives on the Board once this Measure is enacted. But I am sure that given the power, the Board will reach conclusions that will be of tremendous benefit to agricultural workers.
In this brief discussion we cannot take full account of all that this Measure will be able to do. Clause 9 has been rightly referred to, but other Clauses are very wide-reaching, and we shall probably be able to grasp the Bill's implications more fully in Committee. I hope that my right

hon. Friend will not overlook the need for worker representation. I welcome the Bill. I know that my own trade union is giving it full support. When it becomes law, it will be another step on the path of progress, and will give further encouragement to the industry as a whole. I wish the Bill every success. It shows that the Government are vitally concerned about agriculture and its prosperity.

5.38 p.m.

Sir Richard Nugent: I can find nothing in the speech of the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Hazell) with which I do not agree. If it is true that his party is primarily urban and industrial, I have no doubt that the hon. Member will be a very effective voice speaking on the side of agriculture.
As so many hon. Members wish to take part in this debate I shall limit my remarks to Clause 4—or Part IV, rather; "Clause 4" may have too much of a political connotation. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) I welcome this Part, which deals with co-operative activities. We have at present no fewer than six different co-operative marketing schemes, and the necessity far bringing them together into one comprehensive whole is very real. The proposal to set up a Central Council which will be comprehensive, and will bring all these schemes together, including co-operation for production, is completely right, and will give valuable new impetus to the whole co-operative development.
The need for extension of production has been established by the Agricultural Marketing Development Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Soames), a former Minister of Agriculture, produced the scheme and a very admirable one it was, as a sort of private venture in this field. It was a scheme only for co-operation in marketing but, because of the imagination of the Minister of Agriculture, we were allowed to stretch it to the sphere of production. It is impossible to make improvements in agricultural marketing unless improvements are made in production as well. The Bill is rightly drafted in this respect and I welcome its provisions.
The new Central Council will have a great opportunity before it, because it


will bring together the major interests in agriculture and horticulture and some independent leaders in public life from outside. This will give a chance of a new start to be made in co-operation in agriculture by which I hope we can achieve harmony 'and forget some of the frictions which handicapped the industry in the past. We have been rather slow in getting co-operation in agricultural marketing going in this country, much slower than many of our competitors in Western Europe and in the New World. The time is long overdue to give even greater impetus to it.
The pace which the big farmer is setting in the whole farming world today is tremendous. Our big farmers are as efficient, if not more efficient, than any farmers in the world. They are tremendously efficient. The result is that unit costs are very low and they are highly competitive. They set a tremendous pace which is hard for the small and medium-sized farmer to follow because of the handicaps in unit costs. The best chance of the small and medium-sized farmer to compete with the big man is to combine in co-operative schemes for production and marketing.
The kind of schemes which I have seen in recent years show that this can be done. I think of a typical scheme of a number of small and medium-sized potato growers in the eastern counties who came together for production, processing and marketing. One buys all the potatoes and plants them and they all join together for harvesting. They bring the potatoes together in a central store where they are centrally graded, packed and marketed from the whole group. They are sold under a brand name for which they have acquired a good reputation. Very rapidly they get a better market and better price for the potatoes as they are directly related to consumers and they benefit all round.
This is a prototype of what we should like to see. I have seen it in relation to all kinds of commodities. In many of them it goes only part of the way, for instance in pig weaning and calf rearing schemes where the animals are sold to fatteners and not always followed through so that the producer does not have direct contact with the consumer. It is

important that he should have the final relationship.
There are several advantages in cooperative marketing. There is more efficient production and the schemes can reduce costs by sharing machinery and by phasing production and obtaining a continuous flow. By bringing produce together there can be more efficient handling and preparation for the market. The ultimate value is a big enough volume of products to get a direct relationship either with the big retailers, the supermarkets, or the big wholesalers, who in turn are directly related to the market so that the individual producer will be directly related to consumer taste.
This is the vital point, to get producers used to the disciplines of the market. No Government, however strict they may be, are ever so strict as the consumer, the housewife, but the rewards are considerable for the producers who study this aspect and relate their production to it. This means not only grading and preparing produce in better form, but in the production using different methods of management and breeding so as to breed the right kind of animal, the right kind of bird, or plant to suit consumer taste.
I have in mind a scheme of a group of broiler producers who get a premium of 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. over the average market price because they are selling the kind of bird which has a flavour to it, which is quite a rarity today. It is bred, produced, managed and processed in a fashion which puts it on the counter in a condition in which the housewife is prepared to pay more for it than for others. These are the rewards which producers can get if they make full use of co-operative marketing schemes. This we should encourage.
In the White Paper behind the Bill there is reference to the need for a contractual relationship between the individual producer and the society, group or company with which he is connected. This is basically right in principle, but it must be applied with flexibility. The White Paper speaks of the need for producers to be bound by contractual relationship to their societies. If that were insisted upon in the statutory scheme it


would rule out all the existing co-operative societies we now have with very big trading schemes.
AMDEC has grant-aided many existing co-operative schemes for commercial marketing groups and they have found no difficulty in getting the necessary discipline into the schemes by confining the contractual relationship to a particular product but not for all the members of the society concerned. That is not possible. I urge the need for flexibility in applying this principle. It is right to apply it, but it must be flexible so that we do not rule out the great contribution which these large old-established societies can make. The large societies are rather anxious about this. They are concerned with trading in requisites for their members. They look rather askance at the Bill and ask, "What has it for us?". It has a great deal for them in promoting marketing and production schemes for their members. The Minister should see that it is fairly put over to them that they have a part to play. The draft scheme, when it comes into operation, should be flexible enough to see that they play that part.
I come to the concern of AMDEC with promotion of co-operatives which is to be transferred to the Central Council. It is right that it should be combined in the Central Council, and to absorb AMDEC completely into the new Central Council would be an advantage in reducing the number of bodies working in this field. There would be an advantage in terms of staff because we want to bring all staff in, and the experience of the N.F.U. and so on, under the Central Council. If AMDEC continues in a truncated form it will still be doing much administrative work in this scheme and I am afraid that may lead to a great deal of confusion. I doubt whether what would be left would be a really viable unit and I ask the Minister to look again at this problem.
One final point about the Minister's general policy on encouraging co-operative development is the relationship with the producer marketing boards. The two producer marketing boards—the Egg Marketing Board and the Wool Marketing Board—are causing a great deal of anxiety at present, for different reasons.
The Wool Marketing Board has announced its intention of generally developing its trading activities, which will go directly into the sphere now being filled by agricultural co-operatives, trading in requisites of all kinds. It is perfectly within the Board's scheme that it should do this, but each marketing board has a statutory responsibility to encourage cooperation. Clearly, if the Board develops in this fashion it will cut right across the existing co-operatives.
The Egg Marketing Board has caused a different kind of problem by announcing a new scheme for a contract system. We all welcome the contract system. I think that it is a good system. However, the Board has announced its intention of making all payments for eggs centrally from the Board to producers and cutting out the packing stations. There are several hundred co-operative packing stations. They are very worried about the effect this will have upon them. They fear that their very existence is threatened by this, that it will basically disturb the loyalty of their members. They also feel that it will not cut costs, because they will have to continue to keep storage records. After all, they have to collect and handle the eggs. They will still have to keep all the records. Therefore, it does not seem that the new scheme will effect any economy in recording and accounting costs, but it will cause immense damage to producer packing stations.
Therefore, I urge the Minister to consider the activities of both these Marketing Boards. What is needed is a balance. Of course it is right for producer marketing boards to develop their activities, but they have an obligation to encourage and assist the development of agricultural and horticultural co-operatives generally. As these Boards are now proceeding, their developments endanger the Minister's policy of the general development of cooperatives. I know that the Minister has a statutory position to protect here, but I hope he will take note of the great anxiety there is about this. I hope that in due course he will be able to clarify the position. With those few words, I welcome this Part of the Bill, because I feel it will be of great benefit in the farming world.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. David Ensor: On St. Andrew's night it is appropriate to welcome two Scottish Members who in due course will be winding up this debate. I am sorry that I cannot agree with the statement of the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) that the ayes were not behind us on this side of the House.
I shall spend a little time discussing the general situation with regard to agriculture. I commend the Bill to the House as a great piece of legislation, the greatest piece of agricultural legislation since 1947. It will be of great assistance, not only to the farming community as a whole, but to the population in general and to the housewife in particular.
The farming community has always been different. There are problems. Those of us who have farmed and who have practical experience know that what suits the grain farmers of the Eastern Counties obviously does not suit the feeders of the West Country. This is an inescapable fact. It must be remembered that my right hon. Friend is not only Minister of Agriculture. He is also Minister of Food. As such, he has a dual responsibility to the people—not only to the farmers, but to those who buy their products. This is often overlooked.
Of course, the farming community is different. We need only recall the events of last February, when there were some very astonishing performances by farmers, by members of the National Farmers' Union, and by many others, who said that the Minister was a monster. It was even suggested that he should be violently assaulted. It was said that agriculture would be ruined and that there was no future for it. A lot of silly little notices in blue, purple, red, pink, and darker blue, appeared by the side of roads throughout the countryside. I strongly suspect that they were illegal, if I remember my law aright.
Be that as it may, it can never be suggested and it has never been suggested, except by Mr. Neville Chamberlain 35 years ago, and he did not know much about it, that we could ever produce all the food we need. It is a physical impossibility. In spite of all the moans and groans of last February, it is interesting to note that, although my right hon.

Friend gave only ld. on milk, production has increased. I can tell the House what would have happened if my right hon. Friend had increased the Id. to 2d., 2½d. or 3d. It would have been the same story of four or five years ago, when milk was poured down the drain.
It was all rather unpleasant. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite said rather unpleasant things six to eight months ago—that agriculture would be ruined, that milk farmers would be out of business, and so on. Nobody has ever thought to give my right hon. Friend the credit for what he did about keeping steady the cost of living of agricultural products. What they wanted was to throw stones at him, to shoot him, to run him over by trucks, and heaven knows what. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) may laugh, but that is what they said. I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is to wind up for the Opposition tonight. Perhaps he will tell us what the Conservatives would have done in the circumstances with regard to beef, milk and marketing generally.
One of the troubles which has beset agriculture for more years than I care to remember has been the disorder in marketing. One of the things which my right hon. Friend did—here let us give credit to right hon. and hon. Members opposite—was to take up what they had suggested with regard to cereal marketing. It was a sound idea. It was an attempt to put cereal marketing on a sound basis. By the Bill the Government are trying to do something with regard to other products, and this can only be of ultimate benefit to everybody concerned. Of course, there are difficulties in marketing. There always have been, but one of the problems in agriculture has been principally the marketing of meat. I include in that beef, mutton and pork. It has always been a problem and always will be unless we have controlled marketing in the sense that is provided in the Bill.
I have a slight knowledge of this matter, because I have seen in operation a system where marketing runs riot and one has high prices for the producer one week and low prices for him the next, but the price to the consumer never varies. This is a fact and it is one of


our troubles. We have always had this situation, because between the producer on the farm and the consumer there are far too many middlemen who for years have battened on both the farmer and the housewife. This has been the case with meat and poultry. The Bill will do a great deal to get rid of this unpleasant situation. It is bound to do so, provided that we bring in a system of orderly marketing combined with co-operation.
In 60 years Denmark, a small country devoted totally to agriculture, has by its energy and its system of co-operation made itself into one of the greatest agricultural countries that the world has ever seen. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree with me in saying that. This is the kind of system that we need in this country, but we shall never get it if we allow ourselves to get into a state of marketing chaos. We want co-operation, and I speak now only of one aspect of the Bill.
On 27th October the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said in another place that in his view there was a possibility that as a result of the setting up of a Meat and Livestock Commission the price of meat might go up by one farthing a pound to the consumer. I hesitate always to impute anything but the purest of motives to hon. Members opposite, but I suggest to them that they may have forgotten what Lord Champion went on to say, which was that although possibly in the first instance the price of meat might go up by that amount, spread over the entire operation and over a long period there would probably be in the end a reduction in the price of meat. I am sure that the Minister will agree.
I now come to something which I find slightly distasteful. On 22nd December last, when I was a new Member of the House, I spoke in the debate on the Second Reading of the Cereals Marketing Bill when the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffths) decided, after I had spoken, to make a personal attack upon me to the effect that I knew nothing about agriculture, knew less about cereal marketing and less about anything else. I find this distasteful and unfortunate.
I felt that today I should deal with these allegations, if possible. I therefore wrote to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds but I see that he is not here.

I told him that I intended to mention him by name. In the circumstances I feel that it would not be the right thing to deal with the allegations that he made against me because I would wish to say what I wanted to say to his face. As he is not here I do not propose to do so.
This is a good Bill. It is a Bill in the tradition of Lord Williams and in the tradition of putting agriculture on its feet. The House should congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing it forward. It is a long Bill, which no doubt will take us a long time to discuss, but I am sure that it will do nothing but good to the farmers, to the housewives, and to the people in the country generally.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. John Brewis: I hope that it will put the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) in a better mood if I say that I am sure that he knows much more about meat marketing than I do. I cannot, though, share his displeasure that there has been an increase in milk production. There is plenty of room for more milk in the making of cheese and butter and I hope that the Minister will see that more is produced.
I will not follow the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe in his remarks on meat marketing, but I would say, first, that I am very disappointed that the Minister has reduced the grant under the Farm Improvement Scheme from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent. There is a tremendous need for modern buildings in the country and I believe that we shall find it necessary to replace farm buildings much more often than has been done in the past. Many of these buildings are 100 years old. We shall have to look at the likelihood that farm buildings will need replacing every 20 years or so. I therefore deprecate this cut.
I cannot but feel that cuts like this, and the cut in the Territorial Army, are being made to increase aid for housing, but if housing is so important why cannot improvements to workers' houses be included in approved expenditure under the Farm Improvement Scheme? We can include housing for cows and calves and pigs, but we can never obtain a grant to build housing for farmworkers. The result is that everybody is doing up old houses in an uneconomic way in order to obtain a grant rather than building


new houses. If the Minister says that this is a matter for the Minister of Housing, I would point out that it is possible under the Hill Farming Scheme to obtain assistance to do up houses for workers. I know there is also provision in the Housing Act for subsidies for the housing of agricultural workers, but this has been disappointing. I am sure that the Secretary of State for Scotland will confirm that very few houses in Scotland are built with assistance from this subsidy.
I come now to the question of amalgamations. In Galloway there are not very many really small farms. There are farms of between 50 to 70 acres which are what one might call family farms. Many years ago, I read a very good book called "The Farming Ladder", by Frank Henderson, in which he showed that farms of this size could be very productive and, in fact, more productive per acre than the much larger farms. In my experience, the farm of this sort of size is doing quite well, being run by the family. The shoe is beginning to pinch, however, on the farm of about 120 to 150 acres, while those of the next larger size, 300 acres or so, are perfectly all right.
Will it he possible to amalgamate two farms of 120 to 150 acres to make a really good unit in economic terms? The farmer with about 120 acres is finding difficulty. In dairy areas he has to employ a dairyman who must be paid a high wage. In arable areas he cannot have the benefit of the range of machinery which the bigger farm can have. Will it be possible to obtain grants to amalgamate farms of 120 to 150 acres? In economic terms, such amalgamations could well be a good development.
I hope that the Minister will leave a good number of the family farms of 50 to 70 acres. One of the reasons why we have had such good relations between farmers and workers in agriculture is that a worker who has worked hard and saved has had a chance of climbing the farming ladder and getting one of these small farms. In my experience, many of them have done well in that way. Nowadays, with the tremendous requirement for capital to start in a big farm, if we do away with too many of the smaller farms we shall make the farming ladder look

more like the sort of ladder one sometimes used to see in a stockyard, with two or three rungs knocked out of it, so that the worker will not be able to climb up at all.
Now the rural development boards. In the hill areas there are problems. There are rivalries between farming and recreation, between farming and tourism, between farming and natural beauty, and several other rivalries besides, but none of these represents any problem at all compared with the contest between sheep and trees. It is much too simple to say, as the Minister did in his White Paper, that farming and forestry are complementary. They can at times be complementary, but generally they are in collision. It is far too simple to say, also, that the good land should be left to the farmer and the bad land go to the forester. Trees are a crop like anything else, and, naturally, trees prefer to have good land rather than bad.
A great deal depends on the economic circumstances of hill farming. Before the war, sheep farming was very much down and the Forestry Commission was able to purchase land in forests like Kielder and Glentrool which ought never to have been planted at all. When, after the war, the Commission continued with the inexorable planting of good sheep farms, a great deal of bitterness was caused in the hill country. Once land has been cleared and planted as forest land, it is most unlikely—the task is very difficult—that it will ever go back to farming again.
After the war, because of this bitterness, it became very difficult for the Forestry Commission to obtain land, but the situation has of late turned the other way again, now that sheep farming is again not doing very well. The price of mutton has hardly gone up at all in the last 10 years. As a result, the Forestry Commission is now buying farms and planting land which really ought not to be planted at all.
The important need is to get the economic position of sheep farming right, with a better price for mutton and some longterm assurance that these hill farmers will be needed. Second, the Forestry Commission must give up its system of planting whole farms and be encouraged to plant much more by way of small blocks


of trees, working, perhaps, for a farmer and planting shelter belts or for a landowner and planting on an agency basis. In this way, a better sense of land use in the hill areas could be developed. I go so far as to say that tenant farmers in hill areas should be allowed to plant trees themselves and have a statutory right for compensation on their waygoing for trees which have been planted.
I am not at all happy that the Forestry Commission should be allowed to plant trees without having to obtain permission from the rural development board. If this control is to be put on the private forester, there seems little reason, in the light of the past history, why the Forestry Commission also should not come under the same control.
I can give only a lukewarm welcome to the rural development boards. There is a problem in the hill areas which can be solved only by getting the economic relationship between sheep and trees right. I should like to see a committee like the Mackenzie Committee, which sat on the economics of hydro-electric power as against conventional generation, to consider the economics of hill farming and forestry and decide what is the best use for many of these areas. It seems to me that the appointment of the rural development boards is no more than recognition by the Government that there is a problem here and the passing of the buck to yet another committee.
Apart from those points, I think that the Bill contains quite a few good things, and I give it a qualified welcome.

6.18 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Conlon: I give a general welcome to the Bill and congratulate my right hon. Friend on the presentation of this the first comprehensive Measure on agriculture submitted to the House since 1947. Considering that my right hon. Friend took office a mere 11 months ago, it is to his credit that this comprehensive Bill has been prepared in such a short time. I say this in spite of the criticisms of the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber), who complained that the Bill had been prepared hurriedly. In my view, such a Bill ought to have been presented a long time ago, but the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member was concerned only

to call for reports on various sections of agriculture and then to do very little about those reports when they came along.
I shall devote my remarks to a section of the industry which has not been mentioned in the debate and which does not receive a great deal of attention in the Bill itself. I do not complain about this too much. It may well be said that our system of slaughtering—this is the subject I shall discuss—was dealt with in an Act passed in 1958 and, moreover, the Meat and Livestock Commission will itself have overall powers to supervise and co-ordinate the work of slaughterhouses. I quite appreciate that, for these reasons, it may well be thought right that the Bill should not give much attention to our slaughtering system.
I believe that I ought to draw to the attention of the House what I consider to be the unsatisfactory arrangements for slaughtering. I ought to make it perfectly clear before I begin that my view is that there must be a greater concentration of slaughtering. The present arrangements for the slaughter of animals fall far behind standards required in other countries. Indeed, they are not up to the standards now required in most food processing industries. Since the 1958 Act some notable improvements have been made. The regulations made under that Act have required certain minimum standards to apply. But I emphasise that these are minimum standards. In my view, they do not go far enough.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the approved code of sanitary regulations applicable to meat imported by the O.E.C.D. countries requires slaughterhouse premises, equipment and operation of a much higher standard than is specified in the regulations under the 1958 Act. Even slaughterhouses built since 1958 and operated to the full standards laid down in the regulations under the 1958 Act do not in many cases comply with the requirements for the export of meat to other European countries. As a result, only a very small number of British slaughterhouses are approved to conduct an export trade.
I believe that the principal reason for this situation and the general unsatisfactory standards of slaughtering in this country in the past and at present is the unsatisfactory method for the operation


and practice of slaughtering in units which are not large enough to enable maximum use to be made of modern equipment and processes. In a slaughterhouse with a large throughput full use can be made of mechanical equipment throughout the various slaughtering and dressing processes. The use of this type of equipment can achieve economies in operation by increasing the output per man, although I agree that the provision of this equipment will entail additional capital costs in the construction of slaughterhouses. Nevertheless, I believe that labour saving is just one of the many advantages.
In addition, the use of mechanical aids can mean that a better carcase can be produced. The suspension of carcases throughout the dressing operations not only achieves a very high standard of hygiene but also permits a better bleeding of the animal, which produces meat of an improved eating and keeping quality.
A further advantage to be achieved by some measure of concentration of slaughtering is the facilitation of grading procedure. If the carcase classification system envisaged in the Bill is adopted, this would similarly operate more easily and more consistently if a smaller number of slaughterhouses was in use. It is significant of the conservative attitude that many members of the meat trade have that an important factor in the proper conditioning of carcase meat after slaughter—I am referring now to rapid chilling, which is common practice throughout Europe and America—is still not in general use in this country, even though experiments have shown that bacterial growth and contamination of the carcase are greatly reduced by the process. Such a system can be economically used only when the throughput is large enough to justify the very high capital costs entailed in the installation of the equipment. This is another reason why concentration of slaughtering is necessary.
Allied to the high hygiene standards which a large abattoir of this kind would present is the vital question of meat inspection. Past practices in this country have left a great deal to be desired. Although the meat inspection service has been proud of its record—I am not casting

any aspersions against the meat inspection service because it is doing a very fine job under most difficult conditions—and has claimed in the past that it operates a 100 per cent. meat inspection service, I suggest that with the proliferation of slaughterhouses that we have had in this country that has not been possible. A policy of 100 per cent. meat inspection has now been adopted and this is obviously essential to the public good.
The 1963 meat inspection regulations specify in exact detail what is now required and, indeed, they constitute a new bible for the meat inspector. But they do not make clear how the meat inspector can achieve the high standard required if he is to perform meat inspection in two or more separate slaughterhouses when the slaughtering is done at the same time. Full compliance with the requirements of 100 per cent. meat inspection becomes possible only if some degree of concentration of slaughterhouses is brought about, and this is another argument why we should rationalise and concentrate the slaughtering industry.
I want to indicate what the problem is and to show by figures just how far the Minister, the Government and the nation will have to go if they are to bring about a complete transformation of the slaughtering industry. For 25 or 30 years there has been a general tendency towards concentration. The tendency was accelerated by the controls imposed during the war, and at the end of the war the slaughtering was being done by agents for the Government in a very small number of slaughterhouses. Prior to the war there were about 12,000 private slaughterhouses in England and Wales and a further 120 public slaughterhouses provided by local authorities.
On decontrol of the meat industry in 1954, there were only 477 slaughterhouses in use, including 190 owned by local authorities. It was at this time that the Government called for a report from the Inter-departmental Committee on Slaughterhouses. This related to England and Wales and excluded Scotland. The Committee was asked to prepare a plan recommending in what localities, subject to a policy of moderate concentration, slaughterhouses, other that those in bacon factories, should be sited for the slaughter of cattle, sheep and pigs.
Thus, the then Government were thinking of some policy of concentration. But the results since seem to deny the intention implied in the terms of reference given to the Committee. With the Government in 1953 tnd 1954 thinking in terms of concentrating slaughtering, one expected this to be a decent base line from which rationalisation of the industry could take place because only a small number of slaughterhouses were in operation at the time.
But what happened? Instead of there being a rationalisation and concentration of the industry, by 1962 the number of slaughterhouses in England and Wales had risen from 477 to 3,059. It is now estimated that when the full effects of the 1958 Regulations are felt, the number will be reduced to about 2,200—still too many, in my view. I am trying to make the case that there should be greater concentration of facilities for slaughtering, and I want to indicate what I believe are the advantages that can be derived from such a system.
First, I believe that there would be improved supervision of hygiene; secondly, meat inspection could be carried out more readily and consistently; thirdly, better carcase meat would be produced if full use were made of modern equipment and techniques; fourth, there would be increased efficiency from the use of laboursaving equipment; fifth, there would be a greater degree of supervision of the treatment of animals; sixth, the grading of meat and carcase classifications as envisaged in the Bill would be carried out more easily.
I do not complain that the Bill does not specifically deal with this matter because I am sure that my right hon. Friend would refer me to Clause 9, which will enable the Commission to make recommendations to him
… for the rationalisation or concentration of a section …
of the livestock industry, including
… a reduction in the number of undertakings engaged.
The proposal to confer such powers under Clause 9 is welcome in so far as the Commission will be able to consider and make recommendations on rationalisation of the slaughtering industry. It is to be hoped that the Commission will give serious consideration

to the advantages to be achieved by effecting some measure of concentration for the slaughtering industry. Clause 9(2) says:
A development scheme may make provision for the rationalisation or concentration …
Clause 9(5,b) says:
… may be made by way of an experimental or pilot scheme restricted to a specified area or specified undertakings or specified persons.
In this case, I can readily think that there are opportunities—or, at least, one golden opportunity—for such a pilot scheme or experiment along the lines I have indicated. In the final report of the Inter-departmental Committee, published in July, 1955, the country was broken up into regions which it was felt should be provided with reasonable slaughterhouse facilities. Region No. 101, according to appendix 6, is based on the Manchester area. In that area there are two county boroughs—Manchester and Salford—eight boroughs, seven urban districts and one rural district, with a total population of 1,311,500.
Here is a golden opportunity to attempt a pilot scheme for experiment along the lines that I have suggested, because that region, in the near future—certainly in the next few months—will have a very large factory abattoir coming into operation. It is to be equipped for the receiving of animals, for their bedding and resting, for slaughtering on the line system, for conditioning rooms which provide for rapid chilling, and for the marketing of the meat for sale to the retailer. If the Minister or the Commission think of choosing an area for such an experiment, I suggest the Manchester area in the near future.
If full advantage is to be taken of the benefits made possible by the rationalisation of the slaughtering industry, including some degree of controlled concentration, some central action may be required and the Bill will, I hope, provide the necesary opportunities for this.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. R. H. Turton: The hon. Member for Gateshead, East (Mr. Conlan) spoke very good sense about many of the problems of slaughtering. No one in this House can be happy about


either the transport or the slaughtering of cattle. But the corollary of his demand for centralisation of slaughtering is to increase the distance that cattle must be transported. I believe that the answer is in a balance, but undoubtedly this will be a matter to be looked at by the new Meat and Livestock Commission. I have my own views about the value of the Meat and Livestock Commission, because I always think that it is a little doubtful whether it is wise to select the ignorant to advise and give information to the experts about problems which until now the experts have been unable to solve. That is the key to this advisory commission. Everyone on the Commission is to know nothing about it before joining it. That is its weakness.
Ministers have a habit of appointing retired generals to solve all the difficult problems in civilian life. I never thought that it worked very well with P.I.D.A., which we are now burying in the Commission. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether some of the people joining the Commission ought not to have some knowledge of the matters which they are to discuss. I always found that the general view of the pig industry was that P.I.D.A. was a very expensive advisory authority and I fear that the Meat Commission will also be a very expensive advisory authority. The Minister told us that its cost would be about 10s. to 15s. a head for every beast slaughtered, a higher estimate than that recently made in the farming Press. I hope that the Commission will justify its heavy costs and that in the appropriate Price Review the Minister will take account of the fact that farmers will have that greater burden on their costs of production.
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Bill is a ragbag of gimmicks. Some of them are good, but about others we are rather doubtful. However, the Bill is definitely retrograde in Clause 29. The system of farm improvements, which was introduced by the last Government, was highly successful, but had one weakness. The criticism often levelled at it was that it helped the rich farmer on the fertile land far more than the struggling upland farmer.
I will try to draw the present pattern of British agriculture. The hill farmer, with his 50 per cent. grant for his farm

improvement scheme and with hill cattle, hill farming and winter keep schemes, has been fairly reasonably helped by successive British Governments. I have always felt that the greatest credit should go to Lord Williams for having initiated the hill farming scheme which was a landmark in British agriculture and in this improvement successive Governments cooperated. The farmer on the rich fertile land has gained by the whole of the 1957 Act with long-term guarantees and sells a high proportion of what he produces and therefore gets all the benefit of guaranteed price and deficiency payment schemes. He is also the man with the larger capital.
In between there is the upland farmer, the man mainly engaged in livestock rearing and sometimes producing a little milk, but not selling much of the produce of his arable land but requiring it for feeding his livestock. He gets no grant or deficiency payment for his milk and is ineligible for any other form of help which successive Governments have given, except the farm improvements scheme.
Under the Bill, the help he gets for his improvements to make himself more economic is to be cut from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent. I know that the Government will say that they are extending the range of improvements, but for whose benefit will that be? The major change in the schedule of improvements is for plant and machinery. That will not be for the benefit of the upland farmer, although it will be of immeasurable benefit to the rich farmer on fertile land who wants a corn drier and expensive dairy equipment. But it will be of no use to the small man in the range I am discussing, with some 70 to 150 acres of difficult land. Yet he requires help. The evidence of that is plain in the National Farmers' Union accounts scheme of last year when this group of farmers engaged in livestock rearing were found to have an average profit of £11 a week. That is a criticism of the agricultural policies of both parties for some time and we have to put it right.
The Minister is making it more difficult, but even if such a farmer wanted expensive plant or machinery, with the present financial stringency he would not be able to bear his 75 per cent. share of the cost. I ask the Minister to review


this part of his scheme. I know that it can be said that a committee is studying this matter, but the upland farmer has waited too long and while the committee is sitting it is wrong to put the clock back.
Unfortunately, the Financial Resolution has been so tightly drafted that it will be difficult to deal with this problem in Committee. That is why I want to address all of my speech to it today. The right way to deal with the matter is to have a variable rate for improvements. If they are to make the necessary increase in productivity, not only for themselves and their own financial future, but to meet the needs of the country, most of these upland farmers will want to convert buildings to the umbrella type and probably also Dutch barns, which are of particular value to them. Improvements of this type are essential to the smaller farmers in difficult areas, and if they were given a higher rate of grant, certainly 33⅓ per cent. and I would prefer about 40 per cent., they would be able to make these improvements and their rate of grant would be between what is given to farmers in the hill farming areas and what is given to those in the rich lowland areas. It is reasonable that the grant should be only 25 per cent. for plant and machinery, but I would like there to be a greater amount for diversification.
There is one other factor which 1 should like the Minister to consider. The First Secretary's National Plan shows that by 1970 we shall require, in 1964 values, another £78 million worth of meat and meat products. If that is not to be produced at home, it will have to be imported and that will make our balance of payment problems very much greater. We must therefore tackle the problem of getting more meat by encouraging the raw materials for the industry to be grown in the upland areas, particularly in the upland areas because it is more economic to grow raw materials for the meat industry, store cattle, store pigs and store sheep, up there than it is on the rich fertile lands where charges are very much higher. Therefore, there is a strong case for having a differential calf subsidy and for giving a much higher rate of subsidy for calves raised in hill farming and upland areas.
That would mean that the farmers would have a greater incentive to turn

from milk production to livestock rearing. When they get their monthly cheques for their milk production, it is difficult to persuade upland or hill farmers to turn over from milk production to livestock rearing. If it were possible to inject into a farmer's finances a regular payment by means of giving a much higher calf subsidy, I believe that this would be a means of getting the store cattle that we require. I therefore ask the Minister to think again about what he is doing in the way of farm improvements.
We all, on both sides, have the same aims. We wish to see British agriculture growing a far greater proportion of the food that we require. We know that meat production will be a baffling problem for all the Western European countries in the next decade. Do not let us make it more difficult by the provisions of this Bill.

6.51 p.m.

Mr. W. T. Williams: In view of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) towards the conclusion of his speech, may I say at the outset that although I share a name that is highly honoured in every part of the agriculture industry, I make no pretence at being an expert in either agriculture or butchery.
However, as I ploughed through—if that is the right word—the Bill and as far as I have any competence to pass judgment, it seemed to me to be a pretty good Bill. I was encouraged in that judgment by such reviews and papers as I read about the Bill written by people more competent than myself. I was the more encouraged when I saw the niggardly praise that was given to the Bill by the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber), because it has been my experience in the House of Commons that on matters of which I know something right hon. and hon. Members opposite have usually been wrong.
If I may hasten to the matters on which I may claim to have some little competence to speak, I will restrict what I have to say to Parts IV and V of the Bill and speak of them from the point of view of the co-operatives, the agricultural co-operatives in particular, on whose behalf I invite the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister.
The Bill, they all agree, is a turning point in the Government's policy towards agriculture. My right hon. Friend has, I believe, received general good will and congratulations from all kinds of agricultural co-operatives for the interest and confidence that the Bill shows in agricultural co-operation. It is, how-eever, a pity that in doing this my right hon. Friend has nevertheless been guilty of some discourtesy to the co-operative movement, and it is right that I should say so.
My right hon. Friend will say that he has consulted the co-operative representatives. I have, however, authority to say that that is not how they understand the way in which the Minister has dealt with them. Certainly, they have been told what my right hon. Friend proposes to do, but that is not the same thing as consultation. There is a sense of grievance—I must put it thus strongly—from both the Federation of Agricultural Co-operatives and from A.C.C.A. concerning the way in which my right hon. Friend has obtained the information and sought the guidance that he has sought and obtained concerning the Bill.

Mr. Peart: I should hate to appear to be discourteous. I do not know whether my hon. and learned Friend can produce evidence of that. I believe the position to be the reverse. Whoever has advised my hon. and learned Friend about my approach is wrong.

Mr. Williams: My right hon. Friend will already have had from the Agricultural Central Co-operative Association some cyclostyled comments, dated 22nd November, concerning Part IV of the Bill. Those comments contain a further memorandum relating to the Government's original White Paper on the development of agriculture. Those documents state that the Minister has, by the Bill and in the White Paper, turned away from or rejected
what has with much difficulty and very great sacrifice been accomplished in the past".
The comments on Part IV of the Bill set out matters on which the co-operatives made substantial representation to the Minister with regard to the description of co-operatives, the people who were to take part on the council that was to be set up, and on the general function

of the council in relation to co-operatives and the limitations that are laid upon them.
The simple fact is that although those representations have been made, they have in general been ignored by the Minister, and the Bill has presented itself in this form, although my right hon. Friend must know that these are matters that cause great anxiety to the co-operatives.

Mr. Peart: Consultations took place. Representations were made. I listened to the arguments. I have carefully considered the views. No Minister must be bound by any organisation that makes representations. It may well be that the body concerned disagrees with my decision, but that is a different matter; that is not discourtesy on my part.

Mr. Williams: I am sorry to be in conflict in this way with my right hon. Friend, but it is just as well that he should know the views of those for whom I speak. Their complaint is that they were told by the Minister what he would do after he had received advice and had come to conclusions from persons who, in their judgment—and, indeed, in mine—were less competent to give him advice on co-operatives than others who had advised him.
My right hon. Friend may say that that is consultation. It is not consultation, but instruction. The feeling of the co-operative movement is that what my right hon. Friend has done is to receive his advice from all sources except those who have spent their lives in the movement. He has come to conclusions in respect of co-operatives and their activities in Part IV of the Bill. Having done that, and not until then, he has told those who could have given him much help concerning this Part of the Bill, and whose advice would have enabled him to produce a better Bill, what he proposes to do. My right hon. Friend can call that what he likes, but neither those for whom I speak nor myself call it consultation.
Let me deal with the things in particular of which complaint is made. The functions of the Council which is set up under the Bill are set out in Clause 52(2) with very considerable care, and, as the Minister knows, this is itself a


matter of suspicion and anxiety. They include
co-operation and mutual assistance in production, storage, preparation for market, marketing, transport, the provision of buildings, equipment and services for farmers and other producers, research and other incidental activities.…
But the Minister has refused, and, as I understand it, continues to refuse, to put in the word which the agricultural co-operatives are desperately anxious to have included in the Bill, and that is "supply". The A.C.C.A. has set up cooperatives of all kinds, but it has to provide supply and marketing services to assist its members.
It would seem to me that the Minister would be wise to encourage this aspect of agricultural co-operatives. The A.C.C.A. has told the Minister that, in its view, his unwillingness to include supply activities, which is part of cooperatives' general activities, will be a serious weakening of its position which in turn will temporarily at least weaken the supply societies which look to the A.C.C.A. for help and guidance. In due course I shall seek to have the Clause amended in Committee to include that word.
The fear of the agricultural co-operatives—and again it is as well that their fear should be publicly ventilated so that it can be discussed—is that long before the agricultural co-operatives had any opportunity to express their mind to the Minister he had been persuaded by other interests to preclude them from organising, promoting and encouraging agricultural supply societies.
The second matter in the Bill which it appears to me proper to draw to the Minister's attention and which unfortunately weakens it, in our considered opinion, is the constitution of the Council which is laid down in Clause 52(4). The Minister has been told by the Federation of Agricultural Co-operatives that, in its view, a wholly nominated Council would be preferable to the one that he has chosen. Of the 14 members of the Council, only a small minority will be nominated by co-operative associations. The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said that he disapproved of the tendency of Ministers to appoint ignorant people to boards. Dare I join with him and say

that I disapprove of that, perhaps even more strongly.
The Clause lays down no qualification for any of the members of the Council save for four of them and these four are people who, according to Mr. Knapp, in his report, at page 153, are in direct competition with co-operatives, namely, the N.F.U.
Mr. Knapp says:
The N.F.U. is committed to the support of the A.C.T. which is in direct competition with co-operatives and although the N.F.U. is organically related to the A.C.C.A. and helps to finance it, it would be very difficult to say that the N.F.U. gives the A.C.C.A. its unqualified support".
It is difficult to see what possible justification there is for allowing the N.F.U. to nominate four members of the Council when its commercial interests conflict with those of the co-operatives. It is wrong to leave out, save in minority number, the co-operatives and for the Minister to appoint six members in respect of none of whom are any criteria laid down.

Mr. Godber: The hon. and learned Member has referred to the numbers of people on the Council. I do not think the House has been given any numbers. Can the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us more about this?

Mr. Williams: It is in Clause 52(4). The right hon. Gentleman should read the Bill.

Mr. Speaker: Has the hon. and learned Gentleman finished his speech?

Mr. Williams: No, Mr. Speaker. I gave way to allow the right hon. Member for Grantham to interrupt.

Mr. Godber: I am most grateful.

Mr. Williams: Since I have been in conflict with the Minister, I should say that I do not accuse him for one moment of failing in his duty to nominate people who, in his judgment, have the right qualifications for membership of the Council. But, although he is active and vigorous, he is, like the rest of us, mortal; even Governments are mortal.
If I wished to be controversial, which I do not, I would say that this failure by the Government to lay down in the Bill qualifications of the kind, for instance,


which the Secretary for Technical Cooperation, as he then was, laid down for members of a committee on colonial co-operatives, leaves a blank cheque to a successor whom, heaven forbid, he may have from the other side of the House utterly to destroy the agricultural cooperative movement in this context. Again, I have to give my right hon. Friend notice that I, or someone else, will seek to fill that lacuna in the Bill at a more appropriate time.
I find it extraordinary that the Minister should have been so badly advised as to have put in Clause 58(8) words which, in law, are most undesirable and, to some degree, ambiguous. The Bill defines a co-operative association as
any body which is or is deemed to be registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 or the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts (Northern Ireland) 1893 to 1963.
I have no doubt that the Minister's draftsman, when he put these words in the Bill, must have been tired, and went to Section 4 of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1965, for the wording. But the meaning is different from the meaning in that Section of that Act. That Section of the 1965 Act refers specifically to the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1893, and sets out a number of societies which were then in existence—that is in existence before the 1893 Act—and which were deemed to be societies by reason of fulfilling the qualifications laid down in that Act. Once that Act was passed, it was definitive, and in my submission it is unnecessary, and indeed open to misconstruction, to have these words added to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. and learned Member is not going to argue this in detail. This seems to be a Committee point.

Mr. Williams: I apologise, Mr. Speaker. I was seeking to do no more than give the Minister notice; for these are not just Committee points, but points of substance. A bona fide co-operative ought to be clearly defined as to its essential characteristics, and in this respect the Minister has been guilty of causing confusion and difficulty where none need exist. I leave that point lest I incur your wrath further, Mr. Speaker, but I

shall raise it again if I have an opportunity of doing so.
I fear that I have been hard on the Minister, but only because the co-operative societies, the agricultural co-operative societies particularly, are concerned lest, by default, a Bill of which generally they approve should do them injury from which, under another Administration, it would be difficult to recover, and which it would be impossible for them then to counter.
In general, I commend the Bill to the House. I ask my right hon. Friend carefully to consider the criticisms that I have made, and I do so in the hope that when we discuss this matter again he will be able to meet us, having been persuaded by my arguments.

7.12 p.m.

Mr. George Forrest: I am both for and against the Bill. I have heard more talk against it than for it. As a Northern Ireland Member, to a great extent I am for it.
I admired the Minister during the days when he was sitting on these benches. He was then the shadow Minister of Agriculture, and I thought that he modelled himself on Lord Williams, but since he has become the Minister he has disappointed me to a considerable extent. When the right hon. Gentleman was in Northern Ireland he was well received, and in two or three minutes I should like to express my views both for and against the Bill. The Minister knows that in Northern Ireland small farmers are in the majority, and if this Measure becomes law a number of them will be called on to give up their farms.
The situation in Northern Ireland is entirely different from what it is here. Most of the farmers there are owner-occupiers. A number of farmers have inherited their land from their fathers, and they hold on to it as such. My constituency is the largest in Northern Ireland, and possibly the fourth largest in this House, and if this Bill goes through we will end up with only 500 farmers.
I present myself to the House as an auctioneer. Very often when a farmer decides to sell his farm he calls on an auctioneer who can sometimes get him more money for his farm than he expects. Under these proposals, however, the


auctioneer will be left out completely, because the sale has to be an agreed one. There has to be agreement for the takeover of the smaller farm. Unless I have got the situation wrong, this amounts to a take-over.
On average, land in my constituency costs £200 per acre, taking the rough with the smooth. The farmer who owns 30 acres will therefore receive £6,000 for his property. No one will buy a farm in Northern Ireland, particularly an outlying farm, unless he gets full possession of the farmhouse. The farmer who has received £6,000 for his property will have to find other accommodation for his wife and children, and, being a farmer, he will not want to live in the city centre. He will build himself a house in the suburbs, which will mean he will take up good land for living purposes.
It is very difficult for the small farmer in Northern Ireland to belong to a cooperative. The weather is against us. I know that the Minister is not responsible for that, even though many of us would like to blame him for it. This year has been the worst for the farmer for 20 years.

Mr. Winterbottom: They always say that.

Mr. Forrest: I do not know what sort of farm you have.

Mr. Speaker: May I tell the hon. Member that I do not have a farm at all. He must address the Chair.

Mr. Forrest: You are a very lucky man, Mr. Speaker. May I add that I have not one either, but I have had quite a number of farms on my books, and you will be pleased to know that they have all been tidied up and most of the commission has been paid. In Northern Ireland we work in a peculiar way, in that we expect to pay the commission after the purchase, or on the completion date. The auctioneer is going to be left out of things completely. We are going to get a drift away from the land, which will undermine the entire set-up there.
I ask the Minister to consider this carefully, because if the people of Northern Ireland were to agree to these proposals five out of six farmers would be wiped out. It will be difficult to get employment in Northern Ireland where the un-

employment rate is at present 5·5 per cent.—the lowest on record. If we wipe out all the small farmers—bearing in mind that that involves the employment of the farmer, his wife and possibly his son—the unemployment position will be even worse. I should very much like to get a much more satisfactory explanation from the Minister of what is to happen to the small farmers of Northern Ireland.

7.21 p.m.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: The speech of the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. Forrest) reminds me of the great pleasure which I had when one of my duties as the junior Minister in the Home Office was to learn something about Ulster farming. I found it extremely complicated. Indeed, I think that the hon. Member over-simplified the situation; for instance, he did not mention con-acre. I trust that that still continues. It is one of the most complicated legal land-holding systems known to man. I am sure that the Minister will take it into consideration in any discussions which he has with the Government of Northern Ireland. But the basic point surely is that the scheme is voluntary, and there is no question of the hon. Member's constituents being forced out of farming. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will reassure him on that point.

Mr. Forrest: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that con-acre is still in operation and that the farmer can get between £10 and £20 per acre per year for his land. That is one of the reasons why the small farmers will be slow to move.

Sir G. de Freitas: May I leave that point and return to the Bill?
I should like to put on record that I was not here at the beginning of the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. W. T. Williams). Those were the only four minutes of the debate which I have missed. I did not hear my hon. and learned Friend's premises in his discussion on co-operation, and I am not sure that I necessarily agreed with his conclusions. As I did not hear his premises, I could not follow his argument fully.
Before I deal with Part IV of the Bill, I wish to congratulate the Minister on having brought forward the Bill so early in the Session. It shows the importance


which the Government attach to agriculture. I also thank the Minister for coming to my constituency in July to the opening of a new cattle market. In spite of the great industries in my constituency, such as steel and footwear, we are a farming county. The Borough of Kettering recognises this and has built this very expensive new market for the use of the farming community. In Kettering we recognise that a prosperous agriculture is as important to the five large towns as it is to the farmers and to the people living in the scores of villages around the towns. The farmers in my constituency play an important and full part in the huge national meat industry which is producing nearly £600 million of food a year. If the Meat Commission does its job, I believe that it will benefit not only the housewife and, in the long run, the butcher, but also the farmer.
There are one or two points to which I want the Commission to pay particular attention. I want the Commission to give the farmer guidance as to whether he is producing the right animals, and I want the Commission to give guidance about whether he is selling these animals at the right time. It is fantastic that this vast industry has so little guidance given to it on these crucial matters.
Secondly, the Commission must insist on more research, especially on what has been achieved abroad. It is a good sign, and greatly to the credit of the industry, that through co-operation the Charollais were brought into this country from France, and we shall see the result of that in time. It is very much to the industry's credit. We may be the greatest exporters of pedigree livestock, but we have everything to gain from looking around the world and, if we see anything better, bringing it into this country. We cannot afford to be self-satisfied and narrow-minded.
To anyone interested in agricultural co-operation, the two most important documents of the past year were the Knapp Report in July and this Bill. They are closely connected. The Knapp Report generally praised agricultural co-operation, but it pointed out the anomalous rôle of the N.F.U. on the A.C.C.A. I wish that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington were here,

because the fact is that the N.F.U. will be leaving the A.C.C.A. That is natural, because the N.F.U. will be represented at the heart of the organisation which will be set up. The big changes which one foresees in the organisation will have the result that the N.F.U. will be returned to the very heart of co-operation under Clause 52(5,a).
To anyone who studied the Knapp Report, at first sight this might appear alarming, because, in the words of the Knapp Report, many of the N.F.U. leaders are interested in
activities or organisations that are frankly critical of co-operatives".
But it is not as bad as it looks. We must recognise this, because it must not be assumed that members of the N.F.U. as a whole are critical of co-operation. I am a member of the N.F.U. and I am certainly not critical of co-operation. In fact, in the country many N.F.U. office holders are also office holders in cooperatives. But I think that it is right to make it clear that it will be healthier if the N.F.U. as an organisation leaves the co-operatives to the A.C.C.A. We can argue whether the N.F.U. is over-represented at the centre, but the N.F.U. should leave the cooperatives to the A.C.C.A.
What about the future of the A.C.C.A.? Presumably the N.F.U. will leave and will take its grant with it. The Government grant will go. That will mean that the A.C.C.A. will be deprived of about one-third of its income. Possibly its title will again be shortened to A.C.A. The situation will be that in the next year, before the new Central Council gets under way, the A.C.A. will have the tremendous problem of carrying on although deprived of one-third of its budget.
The Government have been very careful to stress their intention that the Central Council should work through existing organisations. It would be foolish of them not to do so, because all the experience exists in these organisations such as the A.C.C.A. But the next 12 months will be very difficult. The danger is that the A.C.C.A., weakened financially and with uncertainty about its future structure, may begin to run down because of this uncertainty and lack of funds. When in about 12 months' time the new Council


wants to take advantage of the experience of the A.C.C.A., the people with the experience may no longer be there, and many of the services such as rabbit clearance, machinery syndicates and livestock grading, will have been stopped. Will the Minister work closely with the A.C.C.A. during the next 12 months so that, in the interests of agricultural cooperation as a whole, its good work is preserved?
I did not hear the discussion between my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington and my right hon. Friend, but I am distressed to find that already it looks as though the A.C.C.A. is not being consulted as much as it should be consulted. The right hon. Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) referred to the Egg Marketing Board. I do not know what consultation there has been in this matter, but I know that the way in which the Egg Marketing Board is carrying out its duties at present is killing the co-operative egg packing stations stone dead. I am no longer concerned with the production of eggs and I am no longer a director of a producer-owned co-operative egg packing station. However, having had some experience in this sphere, I know how an egg station works. I am aware of the way in which the Egg Marketing Board is operating the new centralised payments system and that it is bound to finish the co-operative egg packing stations, with all their services to producers.
There may be a good reason for ending this co-operative system. If there is, the case should be argued as such. It is wrong that we should be here making polite noises about encouraging co-operation at a time when some of the largest co-operative organisations in the country are being killed by the Egg Marketing Board.
I believe that, in the long run, the Bill will greatly help to foster co-operation, but I am worried about the conditions under which the grants will be made, for they could so easily lead to the fragmentation of the larger co-operatives because it looks, from what is stated in the White Paper, as if new organisations will be encouraged to hive off from the larger ones and then present themselves as new, young and poor—and thus eligible for grant. If the scheme insists on a con-

stitutional relationship rather than on a contractual one I fear that this may happen; and only the small, single-purpose society will benefit from it.
I do not understand why in this matter the Government should be more royalist than the king. Of course the co-operative movement always wants to see more loyalty among its members, but we have never suggested that it should be written in as a clause in the constitution. We do not want it that way. The arguments were widely canvassed in the Departmental Working Party's Report in January of this year, and I will not repeat them, since my right hon. Friend is only too well aware of them. The co-operatives themselves have not asked for compulsion. Indeed, they have good reason for not doing so.
I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will reassure us that, in drawing up the all-important Statutory Instrument, he and my right hon. Friend will listen carefully to the arguments of the bodies which represent the co-operatives, who fear the fragmentation of the cooperatives.
I add my voice to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Guildford; why not give the new Council the flexible powers of AMDEC, which can pick and choose in the national interest? It rather looks as if the new Council will have no such powers and that it will support only one type of co-operative. AMDEC, on the other hand, has had great success with its wide powers, which enable it to pick and choose in the national interest.
I have one further point to make on the question of co-operation. In 1967 there will be the 100th anniversary of the first British agricultural co-operative. I ask the Minister to lay plans to celebrate this event by inviting fellow cooperators on the Continent to visit us. I ask this, first, because it is right, if we have any sense of history, that there should be some occasion to mark this anniversary and, secondly, because it will enable us to meet our Continental colleagues who are engaged in co-operation. Within the next few years we may have a great deal to do with them and, in any case, we have a great deal to learn from them, particularly from the Dutch cooperatives.
Four or five years ago I spent a few days in Holland and studied their auction system—the falling price system. I had gone to Holland because I had read of the great economies—the saving in time, staff and money—which the falling price system brought about. I also had the comparable figures for Rotterdam Market and Brentford Market. Rotterdam Market, about half the size of Brentford, had about 40 to 50 manual workers while Brentford employed between 350 and 400 workers. At Rotterdam there were three clocks and six clock operators while at Brentford there were 150 salesmen.
Having been impressed by the falling price system, I was delighted to read some time later—it is now a few years ago; I was away abroad at the time—that an experiment was conducted with this system in Cheltenham and run by a producer co-operative. Alas, the experiment failed and I understand that the clock has been dismantled. I hope that the Minister will try to persuade some other body to experiment with such an auction system, for if it succeeds the advantages are enormous.
We must be prepared to learn by our mistakes. After all, the Dutch have had 80 years in which to learn in this sphere. Eighty years ago a clever Dutchman tried to get round a Napoleonic tax on auctions and started the system of the falling price because it was found that, under Dutch law, auctions were defined as sales, as a result of prices being raised until one bidder remained. To avoid the tax, this speedy system of the falling price was built up. I understand that in Cheltenham, the only place where this experiment was carried out, the market was modelled on the most modern of the Continental auctions. Alas, the whole structure of our industry was not developed enough to take advantage of it.
Sir Frederick Brundrett often refers to the problems created in our national life by the "N.I.H." factor—the "Not Invented Here" factor—the built-in difficulty of so many people, whether generals or farmers, to overcome their reluctance to ideas from abroad. In this case the co-operatives did overcome the N.I.H. factor and the Dutch clock auction system was tried. Unfortunately, the scheme failed. As I said, we must

be prepared to learn from the past and I hope that this experiment will be tried again. It is not enough to adopt a technical device. It is essential that we adopt the system as well.
In giving a Second Reading to the Bill we are recognising that our greatest industry cannot be left to itself. I have seen many Measures concerning agriculture. I like this one very much indeed, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having introduced it.

7.38 p.m.

Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie: We welcome the Bill because it speaks of expansion. We are glad to know that the Government have come to accept what the industry has always stressed—that, notwithstanding the increase in production over the years, we can still make a further substantial contribution to the nation's balance of payments problem.
The straitjacket imposed by the Tories, by their standard quantities, and the failure of the Government at the last Price Review to promote the expansion which hon. Gentlemen opposite promised at the General Election severely taxed the confidence of the industry in its own future. That is another reason why we welcome this new approach.
On reading the National Plan and White Paper one comes across what would seem to be somewhat contradictory statements. For instance, in one place the National Plan speaks of increased production to meet the growth in demand while, in another, it speaks of an annual rate of expansion in net output roughly comparable to that achieved over the past few years. Perhaps the Minister will explain the seeming discrepancy between these two targets.
That the industry can provide the £200 million expansion called for by the Government there can be no doubt. One thing that is clear from past experience and must be stressed now is that there will not be equal room for expansion both for foreign and home producers. More home-grown cereals must mean less imported maize while more home-produced milk must mean less imported cheese and butter.
Part I of the Bill deals with the setting up of the Meat and Livestock Commission and is designed to create greater efficiency


in the industry and to protect the interests of the consumer. This is good in itself, but we do not by any means accept it as an alternative to a fatstock marketing scheme with statutory powers, as advocated by the National Farmers' Union over the years. Although the proposed method is useful, the Commission is expressly prohibited from support buying, or trading in support of the market. Our quarrel with this proposal is that it does not go far enough.
Part II of the Bill deals with farm structure and farm improvements. Amalgamation sounds very well in theory, but it will be difficult to implement in practical terms in many areas. In the Highlands of Scotland it will be a very slow job indeed. In my opinion, and that of my party, the incentives offered to an ageing tenant or the tenant of a small unit are not likely to produce the response which the Bill envisages. This will be particularly true where the unit is already well equipped. Besides, it is still freely admitted now, as it has been in the past, that from the social and economic points of view the small farmer has a very important rôle to play in the industry.
We should also be very careful that we do not destroy the farming ladder, to which reference has been made by several speakers. I was very interested to hear the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Haze11) say that at the present time there are 400 applications for smallholdings in his county. What is most important is that the Bill should ensure that no unit can be taken over by, or added to, an already large unit. I have no doubt that if it came to open competition many large farmers would be ready to outbid the small man.
Part III deals with hill and upland areas. We are pleased to hear that additional items will qualify for grant, but we view with dismay the proposal to reduce the grants from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent. This is most untimely. In the former scheme, many occupiers found great difficulty in raising the 66⅔ per cent. required of them to complete their schemes. The figure of 25 per cent. for item 10 of Schedule 3—reclamation of waste land—is totally inadequate. If we are to get increased production from our hills, it can be done only by large-scale reclamations, and for that purpose

loans and grants of up to 80 per cent. at least would be required.
We welcome the proposed rural development boards, as they have been part of the Liberal Party's policy for some time. Nevertheless, they would appear to be more relevant to England and Wales than to Scotland, where we now have our own Highland Development Board. One of the first duties of those boards must be to reconcile the interests of agriculture and forestry, in relation to both the Forestry Commission and the private landowner. In both sectors, good agricultural land has been planted because there is no proper cooperation between the two interests. We regret that they are not empowered by the Bill to lend money for rural industries, which can maintain the fabric of rural life. It is no good having a lot of large prosperous farms if no one else lives in the countryside. We find that the larger the unit the fewer people it employs, and this leads to depopulation.
Part IV deals with co-operative activities, and here the interest shown by the Government in co-operation will be widely welcomed. The Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Cooperation will be watched with great interest. Time does not permit an analysis of the new board's functions, but it is important to stress the excellent services provided by co-operatives in the past, and particularly at the present time. Those societies have been singularly fortunate in their officials, as I know from experience of working in close contact with them over a number of years It would be virtually impossible to find a group more dedicated to their work and having more of the confidence of the people they serve than their district officers, fieldsmen and clerical staff——

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Could the hon. Gentleman be reminded not to read his speech which, I believe, is quite out of order?

Mr. Mackenzie: I do not want to waste too much time——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): Order. The Chair will pull up the hon. Member if there is any need to do so.

Mr. Mackenzie: Therefore, while welcoming the board, we hope that it will


not cut across the functions of such well-established bodies as the Scottish Agricultural Organisational Society and the Welsh Agricultural Organisational Society. Since so much voluntary effort is put into the work of those societies it would be a pity if they got the impression that they were to be replaced by a State agency.
We welcome the improved credit facilities and the provisions relating to sick pay for agricultural workers.
The Bill contains a large number of useful measures, but, at the same time, it should not be taken as absolving the Government from the need to raise prices at the next Price Review. Since we expect so much expansion from the hills, I should like to quote the price of sheep as an example. I would respectfully remind the Minister that the price of clean sheep in Scotland for the four weeks ended 26th September, 1965, was 26·5 pence per lb., and the comparable figure for 1955 was 25·4 pence per lb.—a net increase of 1·1 pence per lb. Far be it from me to suggest that agricultural workers are being overpaid, but when we bear in mind that in the same 10-year period there have been 11 wage increases, and that other overhead costs have risen proportionately, I think that the case for a substantial increase is clear and convincing.
I congratulate the Minister on all the detail and the thought that he has put into the Bill, which extends to 96 pages. I hope that it will be greatly improved in Committee, where a good deal of time must be spent on it. I welcome the Bill, and hope that it will have a speedy passage to the Statute Book.

7.48 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom: Looking at the Bill as a whole, I find more in it to support than to criticise. Indeed, it contains so much of a beneficent nature that I would willingly go into the Division Lobby in support of it, but some parts of it I must criticise.
I regret that I was unable to hear the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister. I was very fortunate, however, to hear the speech of the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) with whom I have battled on the question of slaughterhouses during the passing of the

Conservative Slaughterhouses Act, and battled for a considerable and very fruitful time. I want to take up something that he said. There are two other speeches I shall mention. The first was a speech made by one of my hon. Friends who spoke about moderate concentration of slaughterhouses and referred to the new abattoir in Briscoe Lane, Manchester. Nearly every point that he made had been made in my speech in this Chamber on the question of meat marketing. Incidentally, he made a good speech.
The other speech to which I refer was that of the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). He made a first-class contribution to the debate raising the point about the institution of the new Commission, the cost of the Commission and the cost which will have to be borne by farmers and which will eventually come into the cost of meat. It was a worth-while contribution to the debate and I approve of everything he said. If he were here at the moment I hope that he would also approve of taking the implications of his speech to their logical conclusion in terms of meat marketing in this country.
When we were in Opposition all our argument was for the establishment of a meat marketing board. The National Farmers' Union and we agreed that there should be a meat marketing board. All that we differed about was the kind of board it should be. Now that we are in power we have not brought forward a meat marketing board. We have brought forward a Meat Commission, which is a kind of public relations officer to sell to the country the type of meat which is produced. That is all it has to do. The Meat Commission will not fulfil the needs of the country in dealing with the marketing of meat as effectively and efficiently as a meat marketing board would fulfil them.
The Clauses in the earlier part of the Bill will be pretty useless. I do not know much about agriculture and I am accepting in faith, almost with blind confidence, Clauses which deal with hill farming and financial provincial provisions. I am dealing only with that which I know something about, the marketing of meat. If we are to institute a levy on farmers for meat produced in this country and eliminate in terms of that levy imports of


foreign meat, we shall do an injustice to the farmers. We shall give an advantage to that section in meat distribution who
toil not neither do they spin
—those who merely deal with the distribution of both foreign and home-produced food.
If a levy has to be imposed and we are to have a Commission in preference to a board the levy should be imposed on foreign meat, if not equally, at any rate in some measured formula, to meet the situation. The Commission will compile and operate classifications. There has been too much jiggery-pokery in distribution of meat which could not be classified at all. The time has come when that meat should be classified, but why confine classification to meat passing between the producer and wholesaler and leave the retailer with no obligation to deal with classification? What about the woman who goes into a shop to buy meat? Has she not a right to know what she is buying equally as the wholesaler has a right to know what he is buying from the producer?
The Commission will have power only to examine that meat and to report back to the Minister. It will have power to examine what is done about meat cuts. We will have the Meat Commission with a sub-committee of butchers. If there are 12 butchers on that sub-committee dealing with classification of meat cuts put into distributive retail establishments, we shall have 12 different clasifications of every piece of meat that is sold. I have never known a meeting of 12 butchers who could all agree on one classification for retail distribution.
It is also said that they are to price meat, but the meat which goes into a retail establishment is something less than 60 per cent. of meat for sale in districts varying from mile to mile in terms of demand. In one district a retailer can sell fillet or rump steak but cannot sell scrag-end while in the next a retailer can sell scrag-end but cannot sell fillets. The butcher controls his prices accordingly. How are we to deal with that? Are we to say that everyone has to charge the same for fillet steak? There are places where I can buy fillet for 9s. a lb. retail and other places where I can buy the same kind from the same bullock or heifer for 6s. a lb. Retailers in that district have difficulty in getting rid of it.
We are asking the Commission virtually to do the impossible. We ought to have gone the whole hog and done what we promised to do, to create a meat marketing board to deal with the whole distribution and wholesaling of meat, including fatstock price; and deficiency payments. If we had done that we would have something far less complicated than this business in the first nine Clauses of this Bill.
The right hon. Member for Grantham, in answer to a question put by me, implied that he was frightened that Clause 9 might allow the Minister to introduce a concentration of slaughterhouses. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman's fears are well founded. I hope that Clause 9 will allow there to be a concentration of slaughterhouses. However, slaughterhouses are controlled by the Slaughterhouses Act, which was introduced by the Tory Government. I remember that, because the right hon. Member for Grantham and myself fought rather bitterly over some of its Clauses.
However, that Act is not referred to in the Bill. There is no provision in Clause 9 for that Act to be repealed. Therefore, I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman need be afraid. I do not believe that there will be a concentration of slaughterhouses as a result of this Bill. I say this most regretfully. If we are to fulfil the original purpose of the Agriculture Acts, namely, to subsidise farming so that efficient meat production is reflected in cheaper meat retail distributive prices, we ought to be bending all our efforts to doing that at present. The Bill should be doing that. To do that, there must be a concentration of slaughterhouses.
During the war slaughterhouses were concentrated into about 400. Then came the new Act of Parliament. Today there are about 3,000 slaughterhouses. Those who promoted the Slaughterhouses Act are responsible for meat coming into the shops which has been subject to no inspection. It has been slaughtered under conditions which should be examined by all the Members of Parliament who were responsible for that Act, to their eternal shame. Any Member who saw those conditions could not but argue for the concentration of slaughterhouses, which is necessary in the interests of the community's health.
It is necessary for another purpose. If our agriculture is to develop in the way referred to by the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, namely, by developing the cattle population on the hills so as to get the arable land fit for the best agricultural production, what will those cattle be bred for? Will they be bred to export them to France or to use here? Is the peak period of kill to be extended from about five months? If so, to what period? If it were extended from five months to twelve months, the production of cattle could be made the most profitable part of the farmer's heritage.
However, if that is done, the problem of slaughterhouses must be faced. There must be, not a moderate concentration, but such a concentration as to create modern abattoirs with the power to freeze and deep-freeze, with the power to can, and with the power to preserve, so that we do not have to import. Such a system would contribute to solving our balance of payments problems.
This issue has not been faced in this piddling little Bill. No effort has been made to make agriculture what it should be—one of our major industries.

8.5 p.m.

Sir Henry Studholme: I hope that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) will not think it churlish of me if I do not refer to his remarks about slaughterhouses and meat. That is quite clearly a subject on which he feels keenly. What I want to talk about for a few minutes concerns Part III.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) put the Bill in its right perspective when he said that it was a very mixed bag. Some parts of it should be useful and beneficial. There are parts of it about which I am extremely doubtful, and they will have to be most carefully examined in Committee. I particularly dislike the wide powers given to the Minister and to the rural development boards. I view them with apprehension.
Part III deals with hill land. There is quite a lot of hill land in my constituency. I am very glad that it is proposed under Part III to extend the period of payments

for hill cattle and sheep and for winter keep from three years to five years. This will be welcomed by many of my constituents in the Dartmoor area. I am glad that the White Paper foreshadows a land improvement scheme providing for grants of 50 per cent. of the cost of certain improvements, that the restoration of fencing will be included, and that the Minister is examining the question of help for field drainage.
I was very sorry on reading the White Paper and the Bill to discover that neither contained any reference to marginal land. I was glad to hear the Minister say today that he has this question in mind. If that were not included, it would be a very serious omission. In my constituency—and, indeed, all over the West Country—there is a lot of marginal land. Marginal land is not confined to any region or to any altitude. There can be quite good land which is marginal because it happens to be steep and difficult to get at. Moderate land can be marginal because it happens to be windswept and perhaps has a very heavy rainfall. Then there is the sort of land which we have around Holsworthy in my constituency which is on culm soil, often sodden and rushy. It costs a great deal to drain and to keep drained.
I am sure the Minister will agree that the best use should be made of our marginal land. This is land which is not good enough to grow crops for sale, except crops for fodder for the stock which it supports. Nor is it good enough to produce milk to any material extent. It does not qualify for the hill cattle or the hill sheep subsidies, nor for the Winter Keep Scheme. The best use to which it can be put is for rearing store cattle and sheep.
There are very good reasons why this land ought to be grant aided. The world is short of meat. We have a balance of payments problem. The obvious thing to do, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said, is to step-up home production of meat. There is no better way of doing this than by increasing the number of store cattle and sheep. Further, as every year more and more of our farm land is swallowed up for other purposes, it is more than ever important that we should make the best use of our remaining acres.
The Devon branch of the N.F.U. is very keen on this question of marginal land, and so is our branch of the Country Landowners' Association. I have gone carefully into those questions because it is important in our part of the country. I should like to refer to what the Devon branch of the C.L.A. says, because I entirely agree. They consider that the best possible help would be to increase drainage grants to 75 per cent. and farm improvement grants to 50 per cent. of the total cost. They suggest that these should be limited to buildings and facilities required for the breeding, rearing and maintenance of sheep and cattle and that they should also include the restoration of fencing, as in the case of hill land to which the White Paper refers, and that grants should be subject to the "prudent landlord "Clause.
I hope that when the Minister goes into the question of marginal land he will consider these suggestions sympathetically. It will not be more difficult to select which farms should be suitable for marginal land grant along these lines than it is to decide which farms should be eligible for hill subsidy. I know farms which were disqualified for hill farm subsidy because they were not technically hill farms within the meaning of the Act but which were as deserving of help as hill farms. I should like to see such farms considered under a marginal land scheme.
May I repeat the arguments in favour of grant aid for marginal land? I think that they are unanswerable. First, there is the worldwide shortage of meat. Then there is the fact that difficult marginal land which does not qualify for hill subsidy is being left out in the cold, and this is unfair. There is also the fact that in this small Island with its growing population our supply of farm land is dwindling every year and therefore we cannot afford not to utilise any of it to the best advantage. Finally, the advantage which an increase in store cattle and meat production would bring to our balance of payments situation is obvious. I hope that the Minister will give constructive help after he has deliberated on this subject.

8.13 p.m.

Mr. T. W. Urwin: I am indebted to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to participate in this important debate. Whilst

it is my firm intention to speak briefly, nevertheless I wish to speak wholly in favour of the Bill. This is a wide-ranging Bill. It reflects to a large extent the industry and zeal of the Minister in his application to his duties during his first year of office.
It has not been by any means an easy year for my right hon. Friend. One readily recalls the storms of protests earlier this year when he introduced his Price Review and the criticisms with which his proposals were then met in certain quarters. I recall that there were even threats against the person of my right hon. Friend because of the forthright manner in which he presented those proposals.
Why were these protests made? What was my right hon. Friend trying to do? These are somewhat rhetorical questions. In the quiet moments of this debate let us remember that he was trying to be fair to the producers and distributors of food and at the same time attempting to protect the housewife. My right hon. Friend did a very good job at that time. Pressures were attempted to be brought to bear by the party opposite, particularly to induce my right hon. Friend to increase the price of milk by 1½d. a pint, without any thought of the effect on the housewife or the possible impact on the prices and incomes policy.
My right hon. Friend, to his eternal credit, steadfastly refused to accede to those proposals and demands. We recall forecasts and threats of the slaughter of dairy herds, leading to a drastic decline in milk output. These simply have not materialised. Indeed, my right hon. Friend's approach to this matter is completely vindicated in the fact that, according to my information, this has been a record year for milk production.
There were references earlier in the debate, and latterly by my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) and Gateshead, East (Mr. Conlan), to slaughterhouses. I express a little concern at the fact that the Bill has not made the kind of provisions I should have liked to have seen. Like many members and ex-members of local authorities it is too easy for me to recall the intensive discussions and debates which have taken place in my local authority council chamber on this vexed subject since the introduction of the


regulations in 1955. I remember protests and complaints by the dozen from people who lived, and still live, in close proximity to a slaughterhouse, which, to say the least of it, was an offence against human dignity and where killing took place on Sundays and intensive hours of overtime were worked to get the beasts slaughtered ready for the Monday market. I join with my hon. Friends in wishing that greater provision were made for more abattoirs to be provided to lessen the impact on residents in such localities.
My attention is further attracted to Part I of the Bill and the words in Clause 6(3,a), that an order under that Clause
may impose duties and restrictions on any persons, and in particular on persons having the control and management of slaughterhouses, for the purposes of enabling the Commission to operate the system.
I should like my hight hon. Friend to give us a little more information about the full import of those words. Is the Commission intended to superimpose itself entirely over the responsibilities of local authority public health inspectors in the matter of meat inspection, in particular? Some doubt may be expressed in local authority circles about the meaning of these provisions. Is it my right hon. Friend's intention to abrogate completely the responsibilities of local authorities in this respect?
As for the transport of meat, I would refer to the innumerable complaints from local people about the crowding of relatively small vans with meat carcases, which is not conducive to good public health. The Minister by means of the Bill will be considerably improving the marketing of meat, which is very welcome. He will also be providing assistance for the small people who find it difficult to wrest a living from the land. He will be helping agricultural co-operation.
As a lifelong trade unionist, I give a special and wholehearted welcome to the statutory provision, for the first time, of a sick pay scheme for workers in agriculture. Despite some criticisms—people are entitled to make them—my right hon. Friend can be proud that he is thus making social history for workers in agriculture.
In addition to the firm proposals for the modernising of meat marketing and

of agriculture generally, the Bill, by its plans for amalagamation, should create more viable units. It should ensure more production. It should, therefore, have an effect in saving imports. It should assist our balance of payments situation and materially strengthen the economy.
I warmly commend the Bill and congratulate my right hon. Friend on his enterprise. I am sure that the Bill will be similarly widely and warmly welcomed in the country.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. W. H. Loveys: I am sure that the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Urwin) will excuse me if I do not follow him in all his arguments. He jumped about quite a bit. He made a spirited and brave attempt to support his Minister's Annual Price Review, and, goodness knows, it needs support. He touched on the subject of slaughterhouses, which has surely had more than its fair share in the debate, as they are not, I think, actually mentioned in the Bill at all. But the hon. Gentleman posed some interesting and pertinent questions about the Meat and Livestock Commission, and I hope that the Minister will be able to answer them at the end of the debate.
One of the greatest achievements of any Tory back bencher is to be called at all on an agricultural debate of this kind. I sympathise with those of my hon. Friends who may be less fortunate, but, if it be any satisfaction to them at all—I am sure that it will not be—I can tell them that I have been here seven years and although I have tried every time, this is the first occasion when I have managed to take part in a major agriculture debate.
In a moment or two, I shall welcome the Bill in one or two of its details, but, before so doing, I must express great disappointment at the overall approach. At this time, it ought surely to have been much more a statement of intent about the future of agriculture. Just before the last election, we had two statements from the party opposite which injected some hope into the industry. One came from the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Minister. He made quite clear that one of his party's aims, when in office, would be to bring all farm incomes,


of both farmers and farm workers, nearer the industrial level. We have not heard anything about that since the present Government came into office. The second statement laid great stress on the importance of the industry as an import saver. One expected to hear something today about the unfavourable balance of trade which is hitting our home agriculture so hard, but there is nothing whatever in the Bill to substantiate these fine ideals.
Soon after the election, we had the National Plan, which gave a vague assurance about encouraging the natural growth which a healthy industry must maintain. But, again, there is nothing in the Bill to make this vague assurance more definite. To my mind, agriculture today is very much in need of definite assurances to remove the doubts and fears which are so prevalent in the industry and which were so forcibly projected at the time of the last Price Review. There is no reason why such assurances should not have been given at this time. After all, the 1947 Bill, which I willingly join in commending, contained definite long-term assurances.
In my view, the most acceptable part of the Bill is the encouragement of co-operative enterprise. We have talked about co-operation for many years, but we have not really made much progress in it. Perhaps the reason is that farmers are naturally reluctant to help themselves. I am sure, therefore, that the establishment of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation should give a lead in this matter. It certainly seems likely to be a useful addition to AMDEC and other activities in co-operation set on foot by the previous Administration.
I think it a pity that the Wise Committee, to which reference was made earlier, has not yet reported. I think that it will have a lot to say in its findings about co-operation, with particular reference to statutory smallholdings. This is an obvious field for co-operation. Statutory smallholdings are very convenient for this purpose. I suggest that, after the Wise Committee has reported, it might be a good idea to have a pilot scheme of special co-operation in statutory smallholdings. I have for many years been a member of a county council smallholdings committee, and I have always been appalled at the lack of co-operation

among smallholders. In my constituency, there are several county council smallholders. One has to admire their independence, but one doubts the wisdom of it. In my constituency also, adjoining the smallholdings, there is a land settlement association which is run on co-operative lines. Although the tenants of this association are very reluctant to admit it, the proof of the advantages of co-operation lies in the accounts of the efficient members of the land settlement association. They manage to do better than the independent smallholders, whom one admires, and who struggle very hard, but who have great difficulties. I am sure that their units could be made more viable through co-operation.
Again on the subject of smallholdings and co-operation, it is ironical that, as was said earlier in the debate, there is a list as long as one's arm of people wanting smallholdings even though they may not be very profitable. This is the sort of thing which we must break down by introducing more co-operation.
I suppose that Part II, dealing with farm structure and farm improvements, is the most far-reaching and most important part of the Bill. It is a great disappointment, therefore, that we did not have an opportunity to discuss the White Paper when it was published and, apparently, there has been very little, if any, discussion with the N.F.U. on this vital Part.
On the question of farm structure, there is no doubt that the non-viable unit is one of the most acute problems in the industry. Attempts to prop up these units with grants and other aids entail the risk of maintaining them in perpetuity with people just managing to keep then heads above water. Therefore, I welcome the proposals for aids towards amalgamation and aid to assist the retirement of some small farmers to help in this direction.
The Bill is absolutely silent, unfortunately, about the amount of inducement to be offered, although the White Paper produced some figures which were considered by the industry at the time to be very inadequate. I would, however, sound a warning on this part of the Bill and say that one must tread carefully and encourage evolution rather than force revolution, not forgetting that amalgamations are already going ahead at a


steady rate. We have, I understand, about 50,000 fewer farm units today than we had 12 years ago. Too much State intervention in the form of the buying and selling of units seems to be undesirable and might well reduce the natural flow.
Also undesirable to me is the proposal to freeze newly amalgamated units. One can understand the reason for this, but I should have thought that somehow a much simpler method could have been arrived at to prevent newly amalgamated units again becoming non-viable units. I should have thought that some agreement between the parties concerned could be arrived at so that all the land was not automatically frozen completely for 60 years and not allowed to be developed in any way.
With regard to farm improvements, I think that the cut in grants from one third to one quarter is a most retrograde step. I feel that it will curtail much needed improvements in the industry. I know there are many people like me in this respect. I have had some improvements carried out at my farm which I should never have undertaken if the grant had been at the rate of only one quarter. I realise that the extension of the scheme to cover fixed equipment and other items is intended to take up the Exchequer support that will be released by the reduction in the rate of the ordinary improvement grant. The overall figure itself is, I understand, to be about £11 million, which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) said, is actually a slight reduction, because the present figure is about £12,250,000 a year. The figure of £11 million could, anyway, be only a wild guess, because one cannot tell how much of the improvement grants will be reduced and how many people will take up the extension of grants for fixed equipment and other items. Time will tell. I feel that there will be a greater reduction in the improvement grants than is expected.
However, one must welcome the extension of the items qualifying for assistance under the Third Schedule. Although this must be administered very carefully, it must not be allowed to become incompatible with the other part of the Bill aiding co-operative ventures. This is very

important. By this I mean that support should not be given to over-capitalisation of individual units. We must be very careful about this. I hope that those concerned will take great care that units are not allowed to be over-capitalised. There is so much opportunity for items such as grass driers, grain driers and other fixed equipment to be bought for farms when a similar sum or a slightly larger sum could be spent on units capable of dealing with several separate enterprises.
The proposals for livestock and meat marketing follow very much the Verdon-Smith recommendations, which met with a large amount of approval by the industry. There is no doubt that this is probably the most chaotic section of the agriculture industry. One has only to go into a market and see the extraordinary variety of fatstock offered, and only to visit farms to see the extraordinary number of methods of production used. The Commission will have a great deal of work to do.
However, I cannot help feeling that one of the main problems—I mean this not lightheartedly but fairly seriously—is that many housewives have so little knowledge of what constitutes a really good joint of meat. While housewives are content merely to go into shops and ask for a joint of beef or of lamb or of pork, many of the production difficulties will remain. Something could well be achieved by the Commission in this direction.
I am disappointed that the Commission will contain no members with an interest in livestock. Apparently the experts are to be on the various committees. I believe that there is danger of these committees engaging in a considerable excess of spending. The Bill contains no detail of what the levy will be. Indeed, it mentions no cost at all. Very little information is given about the duties of the Commission, and I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that he would probe this and many other details in Committee. I agree with the N.F.U.'s suggestion that there should at least be a ceiling on the amount that the Commission can spend.
I welcome the Bill as a whole but I regret that the opportunity has not been taken to give much more encouragement to the agricultural industry concerning long-term intentions.

8.37 p.m.

Mr. Clifford Kenyon: I must apologise to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and to the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) for not being present during their speeches, but I was engaged in committee and could not be in the Chamber.
The Bill is very extensive. The more one reads it, the further it seems to go. I was not surprised to hear right hon. and hon. Members say that it would be probed further in Committee. I think that the Committee stage will be somewhat prolonged. It will not do the Bill any harm to be probed and in some cases perhaps to be amended.
My right hon. Friend has been courageous in bringing forward a Measure of this character and in dealing with the production and distribution of meat. This matter has troubled Parliament and the industry for a long time, and if some order can be brought into the production, distribution and sale of meat the Bill will have done a good job.
Speaking as a farmer, I would like to see meat sold and paid for on the hook. There is far too much guesswork in the auction sales, and although we know that the judges are experts it is far more satisfactory to the farmer to have his animals slaughtered and then judged on the hook, when the quality can be seen, the proper price paid for quality, and the proper weight given.
There is every satisfaction to be gained from the work of the Fatstock Marketing Corporation which over the last few years has implemented such a policy. The farmer knows that he is getting correct weight, quality and price. If my right hon. Friend had consulted the Corporation's salesmen and judges, he would have been able to provide something of advantage for the farmer who sells, the salesman who buys and the housewife who consumes the animals.
I disagree entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) who called this a piddling little Bill. He cannot have read it, or he has read only that part which interested him. If his ideas were implemented, the housewife would have her meat bill increased by a terrible amount. I do not think that he knew what he was talking

about. He is not the only hon. Member to fall into that category.
I will leave the subject of the Meat Commission and deal with farm structure. For many years I have advocated just what my right hon. Friend is now proposing. Last year, 2,800 small farms went out of existence. They were amalgamated with other farms. Amalgamation has been going on for many years. The economic position of farming has brought it about and, whether it is speeded up by the Bill or not, the process will inevitably go on.
However, there are dangers in amalgamation by legislation and these will have to be guarded against. Some years ago, a report on farm buildings showed that 70 per cent. were utterly out of date. Like the roads, the farm buildings of this country were made for a different age and they need to be brought up to date. This has been done to some extent through the milk and dairies legislation and various farm improvement schemes, but the process should be accelerated.
When there are amalgamations, great care must be taken to see that the farm buildings set up at the centre of the amalgamations are not too elaborate and costly, first, because in agriculture one can soon become over-capitalised and farm buildings are one of the items in which that can very easily occur. It has to be remembered that the farmer has not only to erect new buildings, but to buy his stock, and the greater the amalgamation, the more stock he needs to buy. With a bigger farm, because of amalgamation, he requires more machinery. It is all costly. In the amalgamation and development of these holdings, great care must be taken by the boards to ensure that they do not from the start over-capitalise the farmers or the farms. This requires great examination before the work is undertaken.
I cannot altogether agree with the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) when he says that we should bring in more experts in these matters. If there is one person in agriculture who frightens the life out of me, it is the expert. Agriculture is a diverse industry and, whereas a man may be an expert in one thing, he is not necessarily an expert in all sections of agriculture.
I remember some years ago a bank manager telephoning me and saying,


"Next time you are in town, will you call in?" I never like to hear that from a bank manager, but on this occasion it did not matter because it was not my bank. The manager was a friend of mine. When I went to see him, he asked for my opinion on a certain farm. I replied that it was farmed by an expert. "Yes, I know" said the manager, "but I want your frank opinion on the whole set-up of the farm as you know it."
I replied, "This man writes in all the farming papers and addresses farmers' discussion classes all over the country. He even comes on the wireless to tell us all how to farm." "That is not what worries me", said the bank manager; "he is about £20,000 on overdraft at my bank and he wants some more. What would you say?" I answered, "Shake hands with the £20,000 he has got and do not give him any more." Too often we are advised what to do by the experts who are practical failures, and we know it.
What we need on the boards are practical, down-to-earth men who have farmed and have made a success of their farms. Those are the men we want on the boards, to build up the structure and to show what can be done with the amalgamations of the small farms into larger units.
My right hon. Friend the Minister will be dealing with the hill farms. A hill farm is not a substitute for a lowland farm. Although the building programmes are gradually bringing the hill farms and the hill land into greater importance, let us remember that the higher one goes in altitude, the lower the fertility; it is colder and one does not get the growth. In areas on the Pennines, we have snow when the corn is six inches long in the lowlands. It is the same on most of the hills of this country. The growth is not early enough and it stops too early in the autumn. However much we may fertilise, drain and stock, a man cannot get the return from hill farming that he may expect after putting all his money into it. The hill farm is not a substitute for the lowland farm. The production can be greatly improved, but it will take a tremendous amount of work.
I have never been happy about subsidies. Hon. Members will know that I fought the calf subsidy, for instance, from the beginning. There are other subsidies

which I do not like. Some of them are good; some of them are not good. My right hon. Friend the Minister should look very carefully at the subsidy and grant system as he has put it forward in the Bill. A tremendous amount of money can be wasted, and has been wasted. I think about the small farmers scheme by which a farmer could obtain up to £1.000 in one way or another.
I have seen some of these schemes in operation. I have seen ditching undertaken and paid for, and three years afterwards, when the scheme was finished, the same ditches have filled up and are never touched again. The work is not followed up. In agriculture, one must follow up the work done, otherwise the land will return to its former state very quickly. This is one of the things which we have to fight on hill land. One can fertilise it, lime it and slag it, but one must follow up the work all the time; other wise it is useless.
My right hon. Friend the Minister is bringing forward grants through the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation and in other ways. I have never been happy with the Corporation. It is too expensive. It charges 25 guineas before it sends someone along to look at the place. No farmer likes paying for something which he has not got—especially if his application is turned down after the Corporation's representative has been. The Corporation's rate is always above Bank Rate—too much above Bank Rate. I do not see anything in the Bill which will bring it down.
Those in agriculture cannot afford to pay excessive rates of interest. The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation's rate should be no higher than Bank Rate. Let the Minister guarantee through the banks the credit which he thinks should be given, but let him watch most carefully the capital outlay which he makes on the amalgamation and improvement of farms, and on the machinery, and see if the work can be done through the bank at Bank Rate, and certainly at a rate no higher than Bank Rate.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing forward a courageous Bill, and an extensive one, and I wish him well in its progress.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: As time is short, I hope that the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Kenyon) will forgive me if I do not follow the line of his thoughts. I hope that in the category of experts which he described so graphically he does not include those who have taken part in this debate.
The Bill is regarded with more than just ordinary interest in Scotland, because she has a particularly big stake in the livestock industry. It is worth while making a comparison between England and Scotland, because the provisions of the Bill apply to a greater extent in Scotland than they do in the rest of the country. For example, if we consider the value of agricultural output in the United Kingdom as a whole, we find that 68 per cent. of the total production is made up of livestock products, while the proportion for Scotland alone is 76 per cent. If we look at the rather narrower range of fat and store stock, which is the section of agriculture chiefly affected by the Bill, we find that it accounts for 36 per cent. of the total United Kingdom output, whereas for Scotland alone the proportion is 44 per cent.
It is important to look at Scotland's special position. For many years she has been a net exporter of meat products to England, and as a result Scottish producers are much more aware than are producers in the rest of the country of the needs of the market. Another result is that they are far more aware of the importance of quality in what they produce. I think that everyone will agree that this is reflected in the high reputation which Scottish meat products enjoy among ordinary consumers. I hope, therefore, that the interests of Scotland will be represented adequately on the Commission, and on the three committees which will help it, because the interests of Scotland are not necessarily the same as those of England. They are very much more specialised, and I hope that proper attention will be paid to this point.
I welcome the concept of the central Commission which is independent of the various partisan interests. I know that this is perhaps at variance with some of the points of view which have been put forward from this side of the House this afternoon, but often when an organisation

of this type is set up, the Ministry, or those concerned in setting it up, try to represent the different interests in equal proportions. As a result, the organisation's decisions are reached only as a result of compromise and are not necessarily in the best interests of the industry concerned. This, I think, is reflected in the allocation of membership within the organisation, and perhaps also in the strength of the personalities of those appointed to it. This independent central Commission should lead to a more decisive organisation of the meat industry.
Nevertheless, while I welcome this concept of an independent Commission, on the ground that it will be able to reach its decisions more objectively than other forms of organisation might be able to do, I stress the tremendous need for men of high calibre and business ability to be appointed to it because if this is not done the Commission will probably fail. I should like to strike a note of caution about the size of the committees. Great care must be taken to ensure that they do not become too unwieldy. If this independent central Commission does not work successfully, I hope that the Minister will be ready to consider some alternative way of making it more effective.
One of the first tasks of the Commission must be to introduce more stability into the meat markets of this country. In recent weeks we have had a particular example of the lack of balance which too often occurs. For example, in the Smithfield Market over the last six weeks the price of Scottish beef has fallen by 14 per cent. from 3s. a 1b. to 2s. 7d. a 1b. while the price of imported beef has fallen even more dramatically from 2s. 10d. a 1b. to 2s. 2d. a 1b. Yet over the same period the level of retail prices in the shops has remained very much the same. This, I hope, is the kind of problem which the Commission will tackle, and that is why I regret that a more detailed brief has not been given to the Commission in relation to its activities in the markets.
I mention two points in particular—first, one which was mentioned in the Verdon-Smith Report, that the Commission should give advice to the Ministry on the question of imports. Anyone who is concerned with the meat market in this country knows that one of the greatest factors causing imbalance and


fluctuation in the market is imports, not necessarily their total quantity but large quantities coming in over a very limited period. I am disappointed that it is not specifically mentioned in the Bill that the Commission should be responsible for advising the Minister on the question of imports.
I particularly draw attention to a question mentioned already by my right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber)—the question of putting a premium on contracts and encouraging contracts. While the Verdon-Smith Report made no specific recommendation on this point, it commended it as a subject worthy of much more study and investigation than has been given to it hitherto. I hope that the Commission will pay attention to it, because a greater use of a system of contracts in the industry will have a stabilising and salutary effect. May I quote the example of the Scottish bacon industry? Because of the lack of an alternative pork market, production has concentrated on bacon. This is a sector of production which lends itself to a system of contracts, and this has developed far more in Scotland than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. It has not only given the producer much greater stability but it has assured for consumers a higher and more level standard of quality.
May I pass to the question of research, which is of particular importance and which is referred to in the Bill? It is interesting that through the Commission the industry is to finance research carried out by the Agricultural Research Council. It is a good principle that agriculture should support its own research, and it is a principle which obviously works, as has been shown in the history of P.I.D.A. over the last few years. I should, however, have thought it better that the industry should support applied research rather than research of a more fundamental nature, which is the type of research undertaken by the Agricultural Research Council, because I believe that applied research is much more likely to capture the imagination and interest of the industry than is research of a more fundamental nature. We must be careful, because if the interest of the industry is not attracted a great opportunity will be missed.
How does the Minister envisage that the money spent on research will be

allocated between different species of livestock—between cattle, sheep and pigs? Will it be allocated in proportion to the revenue from the levy? I hope that separate research committees will be set up for the different species, because if research is co-ordinated in one committee there is bound to be severe conflicts of interest. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to this point.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the work which P.I.D.A. has done in recent years. There is no doubt that through this work enormous strides forward have been made in the development of the pig industry and, in particular, in research. This has been recognised not only by research workers but by producers. I hope that the present programme of research by P.I.D.A. will be continued under the new livestock Commission. I also hope that what funds the Commission takes over from P.I.D.A. will be kept for research in this sector of the meat industry and will not be siphoned off to help other sectors. If that happened there could be a serious deterioration in confidence in this sector.
While I welcome the Bill in general, I hope that the Minister will pay serious attention to the points I have raised, particularly the question of research.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: We have had an extremely good debate and, as one who has been in farming for more than half my life, I have found it fascinating to listen, if not to the whole of every speech, at least to all of most speeches and to part of all the others.
I think this is the first occasion on which I have debated with the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from this Dispatch Box and I should like to congratulate him on one thing, namely, that it looks almost certain that he will be the only person on the Standing Committee dealing with this Bill who will have sat on the Committees which examined the 1947, 1957 and 1964 Acts. That is something of which he has every reason to be very pleased.
Looking back to the discussion on the 1947 Act, I find that, with very minor exceptions, it was an English and Welsh Measure. It interested me to find that


the Second Reading debate on that Measure was replied to by the Solicitor-General for England, who also attended, in that capacity, many meetings of the Committee. This Measure, on the other hand, applies to Scotland as well, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) pointed out.
I must confess that I am anxious, to say the least, about the situation which may arise in the Committee—and I trust that the Minister will think about this very seriously indeed—when we come to Part II and Clause 43, each of which has very distinct legal complications about them. As the right hon. Gentleman is only too well aware, we have no Scottish Lam, Officer to call upon. I hope that the Government will take this matter seriously and do their best to provide us with a Scottish Law Officer. It seems that they have a perfectly good opportunity, if they wish to do so, for could they not induce their supporters at the Hull by-election to run a Scottish Lord Advocate?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): The hon. Gentleman's Government were faced with the same difficulty, and as soon as they got one they ditched him.

Mr. Stodart: We were at least fortunate enough to have a member of the Faculty of Advocates in the House, which is more than can be said of the party opposite.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. George Willis): That was fortuitous.

Mr. Stodart: Perhaps I should point out to the Minister of State that this is the first time, with one exception, that he has been present in the Chamber. It would be more courteous if he did not interrupt me, as is his wont.
The Meat Commission proposed by the Bill is undoubtedly a very much better body than that which was envisaged in the White Paper because of the executive powers which it will have. However, the producers are disappointed, particularly after the assurances which were given by the Secretary of State for Scotland. For as long as I can remember the Scottish National Farmers' Union has been consistently in favour of a marketing board. I cannot recall any deviation in

its views. The Secretary of State for Scotland numbers among his constituents quite the most alert agricultural journalist in Scotland, and very well the right hon. Gentleman knows it. He must, therefore, have been perfectly well aware of the feelings of the Scottish National Farmers' Union on this subject. In the Glasgow Herald of 12th February, 1964, he wrote:
First of all marketing. We will encourage producers to establish statutory marketing boards. Progress here has been slow.
naturally, hearts in Grosvenor Crescent, Edinburgh, rose. Those people thought, "This is splendid".
They are now extremely disappointed as, of course, is one of the right hon. Gentleman's own hon. Friends, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) who tonight—and I think that I took down his words correctly—said: "A meat commission will not deal as effectively with the marketing of meat in this country as a marketing board would". It is, therefore, quite clear that this is yet another example of people being led up the garden path by the pre-election aspirations of the party opposite.
I hope that the Commission will not try to do too much. Paragraphs 2 and 3 of Part I of Schedule 1 take the Commission into the field of pedigree breeding. That is a very specialised field, and previous attempts to link the pedigree breeders' efforts closely to the finished article have never been a particular success.
Reference has been made to Clause 9. Even the mention of the idea of quotas for an individual farm cannot conceivably be made to tie up with the brave new world of expansion talked of in the Government White Paper, where we were told that beef production was to be increased to the limits of technological ability. To suggest that quotas may have to be put on each individual farm seems to be running the horse in entirely the reverse direction. One hears such phrases as "rationalisation", "concentration", "elimination of excess capacity", power to reduce an undertaking", "setting up a new undertaking", "removing existing undertakings"—reference to all these undertakings gives the Clause a most funereal sound.
One of the most important parts of this Bill is, I think, that dealing with the farm improvement scheme. The reduction in grant from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent. has been adversely commented upon almost universally, and the condemnation has not been limited to this side of the Chamber. I have not yet seen the views of any farming organisation or any newspaper comment that has not regretted this decision. It is most interesting to look back at the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture on the introduction of the farm improvement scheme in the 1957 Act.
I hope that he will believe that I paraphrase him correctly. He said, "33⅓ per cent. is all very well, but farmers still have to find two-thirds of the cost and the rates of interest are a major problem in enabling them to do so." Those words were spoken on 25th March, 1957. On that date the rate of overdraft interest was 6½ per cent. Today it is 8 per cent. We have therefore a reduction in the rate of grant coupled with the increased interest which the Minister found so disturbing then.
My right hon. Friend made some highly significant calculations about future allocations to the farm improvement scheme. He mentioned that some farmers might benefit but others would certainly lose. With that I profoundly agree. I thought the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) entirely and correctly pinpointed the effect which this reduction will have.
On 21st November, 1962, in a debate in this House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Soames) gave some interesting figures of the allocation of farm improvement grants up to that date. Eighty per cent. of the total grant had by that time been spent. One-third of it had been spent on grain and fodder storage. Nearly half had gone on milking parlours and rearing and fattening cattle. There is no reason to suppose that that pattern has changed much, and the livestock group which is larger will be affected most by the reduction as farmers in that group have much less fixed equipment in their buildings than the grain storers, and many of the farms which produce store cattle want what is often

termed an umbrella roof over them with very little fixed equipment inside.
This was the case for England and Wales. The position is very much worse in Scotland because by December, 1961—admittedly that was a year before the figures I have quoted—only 7 per cent. of the total expenditure of the farm improvement grant had gone on grain stores. So the overwhelming preponderance of livestock interests—my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) has referred to the 76 per cent. which they contribute to the gross output. in Scotland—will suffer from the reduction of this grant.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman why were there no consultations whatever on this matter with the Scottish National Farmers' Union? My right hon. Friend raised this matter of general consultation and the Minister replied that there had been ample time for discussion on this Bill in general. This has not received the agreement of one of his own supporters. It has been stated categorically in the Press that the convenor of the Scottish N.F.U. Legal, Commercial and Co-operative Committee stated that the reduction in the rate of grant was completely and absolutely unexpected. When we have a radical change of this kind it is unpardonable that those interested should not be given the chance of expressing their opinion on the matter.
The section on hill land is naturally of particular interest to Scotland, where 70 per cent. of the hill land area is in rough grazing, compared with only 15 per cent. in England and Wales. As one who has always and consistently stressed the importance of production from the uplands, I say perfectly frankly that I welcome the removal of the restrictions on the time over which the hill cow and hill sheep subsidies can be paid. I also think that the extension to a five-year period for any single scheme, be it the hill cow, the hill sheep, or the winter keep grant, is a very good move.
But what has the right hon. Gentleman in mind when he talks of "hill land"? Clause 35 says that this is to be defined "in the scheme". My hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme) asked whether the Minister was thinking of coming down the hill a bit out of what is described generally


and statutorily as the area of mountain, hill or heath. Will the area of the Rural Development Board's authority coincide with what is defined as hill land? In Clause 39 the Board's area is referred to as
rural areas of hills and uplands".
By my definition I would say that, in fact, uplands come a bit below the hills. Therefore, I should be glad to know whether there is a move down the hill for the livestock areas.
The Minister made what I thought was an important remark when he said that thought was still being given to farms which are clearly and naturally livestock farms in character but which are outside the recognised areas. I therefore hope that as soon as possible he will be able to tell us what the results are.
But the large amount of good sense and good will which will be generated by the section on hill land and hill farming will be severely dissipated by the animosity which is clearly shown against those who plant trees in an area where there is a rural development board. Under Clause 46 not only can a board veto a large category of proposals for private afforestation, but it can go so far as to make approval conditional on a particular kind of tree being planted.
As far as I understand this Clause, a rural development board could refuse an owner permission to plant, say, 12 acres of larch on ground which had not been under trees during the previous 10 years. If the owner wanted to sell or to let the land to his next door neighbour, the board could prevent this being done, on the ground, as I read Clause 43, that it and the Forestry Commission thought that the ground would be better planted if it were done by the Commission. This is a most extraordinary reason. There may be other reasons for doing this, but to say that a private owner may not plant because the Forestry Commission might plant it better is the most extraordinary outlook on forestry generally. After all, why would it be better planted by the Commission. It is not planted more cheaply. The figures that we were given some months ago showed that there was a difference of about one-half per cent. between the cost of planting and beating up of trees when done privately and when done by the Commission.
I have a great regard for the work which is being done by the Forestry Commission, but I entirely agree with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, when he said in another place on 24th February that the closest co-operation and mutual confidence between private forestry and the work of the Forestry Commission was absolutely essential for successful forestry operations in this country. I commend that view to those who are responsible for quite wilfully, it seems, setting private forestry interests into antagonism with the Forestry Commission by means of this Bill.
I should like the Secretary of State, when he replies, to say whether there are any proposals for the establishment of a rural development board in Scotland. The Bill makes clear that the Highlands and Islands Development Board will look after the job of the rural development boards in its particular area. We have heard that there are two in the Minister's mind for England and Wales. Has the right hon. Gentleman any ideas for Galloway or the Borders, for example?
The powers which were given to the Highlands and Islands Development Board were the subject of very close scrutiny in Committee, and rightly so because that is the purpose of Committees of this House. As this Bill goes through Committee we shall feel obliged—and we will not be doing our duty otherwise—to subject the Clause, which has to do with the establishment of rural development boards and their powers, to the closest examination in order that we may be quite clear what the Government have in mind.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent), with all the experience which he has of marketing matters, emphasised, on Part IV of the Bill, the importance of the small man and the "middle man" getting a co-operative enterprise going. My thoughts immediately flew to the island of Uist where a splendid example of co-operative marketing has been going on for the last three years, in which an increasing number of calves are collected co-operatively off the crofts and find their way into the feeding farms of the Border country and down in England. The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) referred to farming in Denmark where


there is a brilliant marketing system. I spent a week there in August. My impression was that we are every bit as good as the Danes in production—for example, in the matter of the number of pigs per litter reared—but they lick us in their efficiency in getting the goods to market.
The grant for the keeping of records provided for in the Bill is first-class. It is a subject which has always been of particular interest to me. It is a splendid example of the interest in the subject that, as I am informed, the record book which the Scottish National Farmers' Union produced very conveniently almost to coincide with the publication of this Bill, has already sold over 1,000 copies in a membership of only 24,000 people. This shows the interest of farmers and their receptiveness to the keeping of records.
I am also delighted to see the Clause in the Bill which brings in minimum rates of pay for farmworkers when they are sick.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Loveys) so rightly said, what farmers are looking for with great anxiety is the carrying into effect of the many expressions of good intent by the Minister and his right hon. and hon. Friends. Grants for the keeping of records are worthy of commendation, but their psychological effect has already been nullified by the reduction in the rate of grant under the farm improvement scheme. February and March of next year will provide the proof of this particular pudding.

9.30 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) paid tribute to the attitude of the House to this Bill and declared, having had some experience of agriculture Bills and discussions, that this was one of the best debates he had heard. I cannot do other than agree. It has been a fairly critical examination of the Bill, but I venture to suggest that the Bill has come out on top. At the start of the debate, the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) talked about underplaying the importance of the Bill and called it—I think this was his expression—a ragbag. Then we

had the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) saying that it was a ragbag of gimmicks. But the more hon. Members actually examined what was in the Bill, the more it became clear that what has been said about it by some of the more important farming journals is true.
For instance, the Farmers Weekly said:
Less than justice will be done to this comprehensive new Measure—perhaps the most comprehensive piece of farm legislation since 1947—if the dispute over the organisation of the meat industry is allowed to obscure the many useful and constructive aims of the Bill",
and it went on to speak of
a significant and welcome shift of policy".
Then there was the opinion of the Farmer and Stockbreeder,
A Bill of vast scope … could be as far reaching as the 1947 Act itself … even the Meat Commission has more power than is generally realised.
Perhaps the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West will look at what the Scottish National Farmers' Union had to say in the Farming Leader of October, 1965. After it had got over the disappointment about statutory producers' marketing schemes, it said:
Despite our misgivings about the scope and nature of the Commission, we welcome the fact that a central body is to be charged with such functions as the promotion and performance of progeny testing, A.I., and cooperation for marketing purposes"—
going on to list all the things with which it agreed and proclaimed had long been demanded.
It would have been better if the hon. Gentleman, on his return to agriculture—it is a bit hard to keep up with the shadows which flit across the Opposition Front Bench—had been a little more objective in his approach to the Bill. Undoubtedly, the scope of the Bill is various. Agriculture contains within itself great variations. In their nature, the sections of the industry which have been pinpointed for special treatment range throughout the variations of production, type of farm, type of farming activity and so on which are agriculture itself.
The hon. Gentleman said that this should have been a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. Part I deals with a subject which has commanded the attention of farming for the past 40 years—commission after commission, committee after


committee, all the way from the Linlithgow Committee in the 1920s to the Verdon-Smith Committee which reported in February, 1964.
As I expected, the hon. Gentleman twitted me about what I had said. I am surprised at this dedication to dogma of the Tory Party, this devotion to dates and what was said at one particular time. No one must think again. Have we to ignore everything that has been done? I ask the hon. Gentleman to look again at just one part of the Bill—I am glad that my hon. Friends referred to its comprehensive nature—the Schedule relating to the functions and duties of the Commission. He will see why it spreads throughout the whole industry. It is not just one industry. One starts with the producer, and before one has finished one is concerned with slaughterhouses, auction markets, the distribution trade and the retail trade and with the problem of the customer. That is the full scope of the Commission. Is it not right that it should have power to go further, with the full check of this House, of course?
My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East (Mr. Conlan) in his speech showed a tremendous knowledge of the slaughterhouse position in England. We have known for a long time that action was overdue. Anyone who listened to that speech would appreciate that it is right that we should have this power under Clause 9 in respect of schemes. My hon. Friend instanced only one aspect, but this could apply to other aspects. If we really mean to take action in this respect—I want the House seriously to face this—we must give this power. It may be power which will deal with excess capacity. It may be power that will detrimentally affect some interests. That is why we have provision for compensation, and this is why, above all, we have safeguards right the way through, in respect of the scheme, the inquiry and consultation and in respect of this House itself. But let us not deceive ourselves. If we really want to take action we cannot burke giving these powers to the Commission. We must, however, ensure that they are properly and justly appreciated. The hon. Gentleman who talked about the sweeping powers of Clause 9 should appreciate that there have been sweeping powers in previous legislation. Apart from that, let

him appreciate also that the rights of individuals are safeguarded.
What surprised me was what the right hon. Gentleman said about time for discussion. In relation to livestock we have been discussing the matter for 40 years. Hon. Gentlemen were in office for 13 years, but did not get very far with it. The right hon. Gentleman himself was for a time concerned with agriculture, and so he should be the last to complain if we now decide to take action, and action on something which was long overdue.
The right hon. Gentleman also dealt with the matter of the levy. My right hon. Friend made absolutely clear how little the burden would be. The right hon. Gentleman wanted to know whether this would be taken into account in relation to costs at the annual Price Review. It will not necessarily he taken into account because it will not necessarily be paid by the producer, no more than the P.I.D.A. levy was taken into account.
The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton went on from this to the question of the Commission. It was most unlike him to start his speech with a rather sneering reference to the people who were going to be appointed to the Commission. He suggested that the only persons who were to be put on the Commission were persons who would know nothing about it. This was unfair. I am glad that the speech of the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) balanced the speech of his right hon. Friend. The hon. Gentleman said that it was right that we should have a Commission not thirled to any section of the industry but independent and able to sort out all the varying differences. Clause 1(3) says that the Commission shall consist of members:
qualified to serve on the Commission by reason of their financial, commercial, technical, scientific, administrative or other relevant experience.

Mr. Turton: Will the right hon. Gentleman also read the first part?

Mr. Ross: The first point is that the members will not have any
… substantial financial interest in any business directly connected …
That is the right attitude in respect of the tasks we are to give them. But that


does not mean that they will have no knowledge of the job. It is wrong to suggest that they will have no knowledge because they have no financial interest. We are tying in the specialised interests in the committees—the production committee, the distribution committee and the consumer committee.
In the First Schedule there is a definite instruction in relation to the first two of these committees on the appointment of Scottish and Welsh interests, which have to be consulted. The Commission will be using these committees for advice. It will have to consult them. Thus, farmers can take heart in the knowledge that their interests will be consulted.

Mr. W. T. Williams: In that case, is it not the more surprising that, in the appointment of the Co-operative Council, provision is made for choosing people without experience?

Mr. Ross: I am dealing with livestock and not with the question of the Co-operative Council, which is a different point.
I believe that hon. Members have been less than fair in considering what can be done under this Bill in relation to the Commission. The Scottish N.F.U. has said that much will depend upon the members of the Commission and, because of that, we are determined to get people of high calibre.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Grantham underplayed what is to be done about farm structure. We all know the changes that are taking place in agriculture. The small man is being more and more left behind because of the very nature of his farm and its size. These factors limit his ability to keep up to date. I pay due regard to right hon. Gentlemen opposite for making a start with the small farmer schemes. We are going further. There is no doubt that amalgamations are desirable and here we are taking the opportunity to provide for payments of 50 per cent. towards the cost of amalgamations and to provide, by loan, support for the farmers.
We must face the facts. We have to ensure that the possibility of amalgamations is realised and the same thing is true of co-operation. We shall spend £6 for every £1 spent by the previous Govern-

ment on co-operation in farming. That is not something to be dismissed as just a gimmick. The right hon. Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) realised just how important this can be and even the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West, referred to what has been done in the northernmost islands of Scotland.
This is a vital operation. We are engaged, in this Measure, in ensuring economic survival for the family farm. We must provide assistance in this way because indeed we are striving to maintain the family farm and the family farmer. It is no good the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) talking about a book that was written 50 years ago. The ladder of farming with the family farm is not what it was 50 years ago. There are fewer tenant farms available on that ladder and rents are very much higher than they were. As often as not, the would-be tenant farmer has to compete for the farm with someone who is not a farmer but who is able to take the land when the farm becomes vacant and is put up for sale. This is something to which we may have to give attention at some time.
The structure proposals in the Bill are important and we should not underrate even the outgoing payments to those who may be leaving farming because of the position in which they have found themselves. The right hon. Member for Grantham asked whether we hoped that the Bill would accelerate the rate of amalgamations or whether it was just social justice. It is both, because it will accelerate the rate of amalgamations and provide a measure of social justice and easement of hardship which the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends ignored for so many years.
Much has been said about the farm improvement scheme. That goes back to 1957, but it was not supposed to last for ever. Hon. Gentlemen opposite did not mention that. It was supposed to last for 10 years and £50 million, plus an additional £5 million, was provided. With that money gone, the previous Government introduced an additional £35 million in 1963. A simple arithmetical sum shows that with a rate of expenditure of about £11 million a year, the £35 million provided in 1963 was expected to last about three years. There was no guarantee for anybody that anything


would be done thereafter. In the Bill we have provided £80 million, more than ever was provided at any time by the previous Government for this purpose. I admit that we have reduced the grant from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent., but we shall be spending at the same rate.
It should be appreciated that there were certain limitations about the farm improvement scheme, relating as it did mainly to buildings. It was the landowner who benefited mostly, or the owner-occupier farmer, but the tenant farmer could not himself initiate schemes and so did not get the benefits. The tenant farmer has an interest in his plant and machinery and he will get benefits for the first time and so we shall get a greater spread of benefits under this scheme than under the last. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West should not be so depressed about it. I suggest that he reads Blythe in today's edition of the Farmer and Stockbreeder and he will find that not everybody is unhappy about it.
Much has been said about hill land. We are to provide an improvement rate of 50 per cent. concentrating on the actual improvement of land. Is that unimportant? I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Kenyon) that in all these things there should be proper precautions to see that benefit is obtained for money spent. In addition, there is to be the possibility of 10 per cent. on hill and field drainage, and the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton will be glad to know that we have promised to consider the problem of the upland farm.
The proposal for a rural development board has come in for some examination and I am glad to say that my hon. Friends have rather welcomed it. Once again I was disappointed by the new shadow Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"]—how quickly shadows flee—who expressed a certain measure of concern about the proposed sweeping powers. I do not know whether he had read the Highlands Development Act. I assure him that its powers were much more sweeping. The powers are related to the problem. We all know that certain hill areas require special treatment because of their special needs. That is what we provide for. Hon. Members opposite, since they recognise the problem of the

need, should face up once again to ensuring that the powers are there.
There have been clashes concerning land use in these areas and it is right that we should give to the boards powers in that respect and, if necessary, to produce the parish plans. Once again, however, it should be appreciated that there will be Parliamentary accountability by a Minister, and in the drawing up of the plans there will be opportunity for objectors to object. We must, however, provide the residual powers for the purchase of the land and ensure that it is properly used.
The hon. Member for Galloway was worried about the Forestry Commission, which, he thought, was getting off easily, but the Commission's plantings have to be agreed with the board. This matches the question of licence to the private owner.
I am surprised that we did not get support and demands for this from some of my Scottish colleagues, in particular the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry). When this Parliament started, I had questions from the hon. Member and one of his colleagues demanding that I should take action in Strathdon to stop a private forester taking over a private farm and planting trees on it. I told the hon. Member that I had no power. I do not know whether he wants me to take the power now and to apply it concerning Scotland, but I should be interested to know.
The hon. Member asked me whether I had any ideas about the use of this power in Scotland. At the moment I have not, but I thought it right that we should have it applied to Scotland. We can get the benefit, quite rightly, of any experiments that go on in the South and we will use that if we find that it is an advantage to us.
We have a far better scheme applying to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The Highlands and Islands areas of Scotland cover 47 per cent. of the area. Within that, we have power to extend the area to contiguous areas. We will, however, watch the position carefully. If by chance we have missed out any powers for the Highland Development Authority, we can readopt them from the Rural Development Board.
The sick pay scheme has been generally welcomed. I was glad to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Hazell) said about it. It is not a gimmick, and it certainly will not be regarded as a gimmick by the people who benefit from it. What is amazing is that it has taken so long, until 1965 to bring the advantage of it through to the workers on our farms.
The Bill does mote for agriculture than any Bill introduced by the party opposite throughout their long period of office, and they know it. That is why they were so uncomfortable today and why the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West rather smilingly pushed forward his rather trite remarks in Opposition. The Bill will reform our whole meat marketing system, with great benefit to farmers and to consumers. Let us not underestimate the importance of this.
The latest new policy of right hon. Gentlemen opposite abandons the present system of support. They never were terribly interested in the consumer anyway. That is why the right hon. Member for Grantham is ready to load £300 million to £400 million on the cost of the nation's food. One never knows when they will change their minds. The Leader of the Opposition handed his new "shadow" a new agricultural policy and he did not wear it very well today. In fact, he never mentioned it. We think differently. As a great trading nation relying very largely on our export trade, we must try to get our costs of food to the consumer as low as we can. The hon. Gentleman laughs. I did not say that; it was his right hon. Friend. He said it in 1959. I am sorry for him. But the blame is not on him; it is on the Leader of the Opposition. He just wants to ease his way into Europe.
We take quite a different view of agriculture. We want to help it play an even more vital part in restoring the nation's economy, not, like the party opposite, to reduce the cost of Exchequer support regardless of the effect on agriculture, and we are prepared to spend Exchequer money in a good cause. That is why we are putting this extra £80 million

into the farm improvement scheme. [Interruption.] It is taxpayers' money, the nation's money.
Farmers will also remember what the Bill does in respect of credit. We are making provision for an extra £100 million; and it is a figure well worth remembering. The Conservative Party made a start on doing something for the small farmer but wearied very quickly in well doing. The Bill provides a really comprehensive plan for dealing with the small farmer's problems. We recognise his value and the dangers he faces today. We are out to help him, and we help him in all the ways listed in the Bill which have been applauded not only by hon. Members on this side of the House but in frank speeches from the benches opposite.
On co-operation, as I have said, we are not doing the bare minimum. We will spend £6 for every £1 which the Tories spent and will provide help for those who co-operate not only in marketing but in getting better production lines adopted in the market.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West suddenly remembered that it was St. Andrew's Day, and he must praise what we are doing in the Bill. No doubt if he had been at a St. Andrew's night dinner he would have brought the hill farmers into his speech. We are not doing it in St. Andrew's night speeches; we are doing it in a Bill before the House of Commons. It will cost some money, but it will be worth while. For the first time we are providing for new action, not new committees, to deal with the problems of the hill areas where only a comprehensive plan can solve the problems of those who live on the land.
All this is what the Bill does. All this will allow the Bill to stand comparison with the 1947 Act, and my right hon. Friend the Minister was right to claim a certain measure of pride in having had the honour to introduce it.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

AGRICULTURE [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 88 (Money Committees).

[Sir SAMUEL STOREY in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to establish a Meat and Livestock Commission and make other provision for matters connected with agriculture, it is expedient to authorise the payment of any sums into the Exchequer and the making of the payments out of money provided by Parliament and out of the Consolidated Fund set out below.
A. Payments which may be made out of money provided by Parliament.

1.—(1) Payments by way of grant to meet up to half of expenditure incurred in connection with the carrying out of amalgamations of agricultural land and the reshaping of agricultural units, but excluding expenditure on the acquisition of land.

(2) Payments by way of loan, and payments to fulfil guarantees of any loan, made to meet expenditure incurred in connection with the carrying out of amalgamations of agricultural land and the reshaping of agricultural units.

(3) Payments to meet expenditure incurred by the Ministers or the Ministry of Agriculture for Northern Ireland in and in connection with the acquisition, holding, management and disposal of land for the purpose of effecting amalgamations of agricultural land and the reshaping of agricultural units, including transactions involving loss.

2. Payments by way of grant (including annuities) to, for, or in respect of, individuals who relinquish occupation of agricultural land.

3. Payments by way of grant towards the cost of improvements for the benefit of agricultural land, including hill land, but so that—

(a) a grant towards the cost of an improvement which is not for the benefit of hill land shall not exceed one quarter of that cost,
(b) the grants towards the cost of improvements which are not for the benefit of hill land, with the grants made under sections 12 and 16 of the Agriculture Act 1957 (farm improvements and amalgamations), shall not altogether exceed £170 million.

4. Payments by way of grant in connection with the carrying out of proposals relating to any form of co-operation or mutual assistance in agriculture (including horticulture), including proposals made and approved before the passing of the Act.

5. Payments by way of grant to persons who fulfil guarantees of loans for any business concerned with agriculture (including horticulture), but so that the grants paid in any

period of twelve months beginning with 1st April, together with the grants paid in that period under section 9 of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act 1964 (guarantees of bank loans to horticulture businesses), shall not exceed, for the period ending 31st March 1967, £700,000, and for any subsequent period £900,000, and those limits shall replace the limits in subsection (2) of the said section 9.

6. Payments in respect of the keeping of records of any farm business, including grant payable by reference to arrangements made by the Ministers before the passing of the Act.

7. Payments falling to be made out of money provided by Parliament in consequence of—

(a) amending the Agriculture (Calf Subsidies) Act 1952,
(b) amending section 12 of the Hill Farming Act 1946 (which authorises the Minister to carry out improvements for the benefit of hill farming land subject to rights of common),
(c) making section 13 of the Hill Farming Act 1946 (subsidies for hill sheep and cattle) permanent,
(d) extending the maximum period which may be specified in a scheme under section 10(1) of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1963 (winter keep grants),
(e) extending section 4 of the Diseases of Animals Act 1950 (expenditure for eradication of disease) to poultry.

8. Payments to meet expenditure incurred by the Ministers in providing veterinary services to persons who carry on livestock businesses and participate in arrangements approved by the Ministers.

9.—(1) Remuneration, allowances and other payments to, for, or in respect of, members of the said Meat and Livestock Commission.

(2) Payments to meet expenditure incurred by the Commission in performing functions in connection with fatstock guaranteed prices, calf subsidies and the administration of the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts and functions carried out at the request of the Ministers.

(3) Payments to meet the Commission's initial expenditure incurred in performing any other functions.

10. Payments to meet expenditure incurred in the performance of their functions by bodies established under the Act and concerned with rural development in hill and upland areas, or incurred by the Highlands and Islands Development Board in performing functions corresponding to those conferred on those bodies.

11.—(1) Remuneration, allowances and other payments to, for, or in respect of, members of a Central Council or other body established by the Act and concerned with co-operation and mutual assistance in agriculture (including horticulture).

(2) Payments to meet expenditure incurred by that body in the performance of their functions.

12. Payments to meet administrative expenses incurred by any Minister.

B. Payments which may be made out of the Consolidated Fund.

Payments falling to be so made in consequence of—

(a) increasing from £5 million to £12 million the amount of the advances which may be made to the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Ltd. under section 2 of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Act 1956 for the purpose of increasing its guarantee fund, and
(b) increasing from £425,000 to £2 million the amount of the advances which may be made to the Scottish Agricultural Securities Corporation under sections 2 and 8(b) of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1944 for the like purpose.

In the provisions above "the Ministers" means the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State, or either of them.—[Mr. Hoy.]

10.0 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to one or two points that arise on this Money Resolution.
Paragraph 1 provides for the payment of grants in respect of amalagamations. Paragraph 3(a) specifies that the grant towards the cost of an improvement
which is not for the benefit of hill land shall not exceed one-quarter of that cost.
This is a very binding Money Resolution. It has been drawn extremely tightly, and it will inhibit our later discussions to a considerable extent. I have taken the opportunity of looking carefully at the precedents and at Erskine May. In this Committee we cannot move an Amendment to increase the amount of money to be provided by this Money Resolution. We have either to accept it as it is—and the Committee will have to accept that—or reduce it, but that is far from` our intention.
The point at issue is that if we accept the Money Resolution in this form, with this limitation, as it is drawn so tightly, we will be inhibited to a large extent in our discussions at a later stage. It will be within your recollection, Sir Samuel, that the terms of a Money Resolution determine the nature of the important debates that take place on the relevant parent Bill, in this case the Bill to which we have just given a Second Reading. By drawing this Money Resolution as tightly as they have done, the Govern-

ment are taking unfair advantage not only of the Committee but of the House, and I suggest that this is a practice which ought not be indulged in by the Government.
Paragraphs 4, 5, 6 and 7 are not so tightly drawn. There must be some particular reason behind the Government's drafting of paragraphs 1 and 3, and I hope that whoever replies to this debate—I would like it to be somebody from the Treasury, but I suspect it will be the Joint Parliamentary Secretary—will explain why this is so. It is wrong for the Government to do this, and I deeply regret that they have drawn two paragraphs as closely and as tightly as they have done. They are inhibiting future discussion.
As was pointed out during the Second Reading debate, the existing rate of farm improvement grant, which at the moment is one-third, is being reduced, and by drawing these paragraphs as tightly as they have done the Government are inhibiting us from trying to persuade the Government to change their minds when the matter is considered in Committee. This procedure is wrong. I hope that the Government will think again, and withdraw this Money Resolution, and resubmit it at a later stage.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: I strongly support what my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) has said. I do not know how many hon. Members have looked at page 631 of today's Order Paper which covers this aspect of the Money Resolution. I think it ought to be recognised by the Committee that there is complete unanimity between members of the County Landowners' Association and the N.F.U.—the one representing landlord and owner-occupier interests, the other representing the tenant farmers in particular—that it is highly regrettable that the Government have decided to reduce the farm improvements grant from one-third to one-quarter.
I think that the method by which the Government are introducing this through this Money Resolution is somewhat fast, to describe it mildly. Surely the Government must have known that this was likely to cause a considerable measure of dispute.
As the law stands today, the farm improvements scheme, based on a one-third grant, is about to run out. I recognise that. But before that grant has run out the Government have slipped into a Financial Resolution a proposal to reduce the grant from one-third to one-quarter, knowing full well that when they included this proposal in the Financial Resolution they at once precluded any Amendment from being put down in Committee to enable the Committee to argue the case for retaining the basis of one-third.
If we allow this Financial Resolution to pass, it is important that we should have an assurance from the Government that they will not reduce the amount of grant allowable under a farm improvements scheme from one-third to one-quarter until such time as the Bill which we have given a Second Reading has completed all its stages in both Houses and has received the Royal Assent. One knows that the Chancellor is under some pressure and that the more that is granted under the Bill the more difficult it will be for him to make any improvement in the next Price Review. But it is only reasonable to ask for an assurance that the law as it stands today, based on a one-third grant, will in no way be altered until the Bill has become an Act. As I interpret statements by the Minister and as I read the Financial Resolution, it seems that any further application made under the farm improvements scheme before the Bill becomes an Act will be approved only on the assumption that the grant will be one-quarter instead of one-third. I want an assurance from the Government that they will in no way implement this Financial Resolution in advance of the Bill receiving the Royal Assent.
I recognise that it is impossible for an Opposition, of whatever party, to increase the expenditure permitted through a Financial Resolution by the Government of the day. It is not open to the Opposition to seek to increase the expenditure. But, knowing of the feeling in the farming industry, for the Government to use this method of stultifying debate on the matter is a piece of trickery which is intolerable. It is deceit write large, because the Government know that the average farmer will not understand the niceties of our procedure in the House and that very few farmers will understand that the provisions in the Financial Reso-

lution will preclude any hon. Member from asking in Committee for the grant to be increased. The Government ought to be ashamed of themselves for using this deceitful method of introducing this reduction.

Mr. R. H. Turton: I rise to add my plea to that of my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) asking the Government to realise that this is a gross abuse of our procedure. This is legislation by Financial Resolution. It destroys a great deal of the work which can be done in Standing Committee. There is not a great deal of hostility between the two sides on the Bill and it would be unfortunate if the action of the Government in this matter drove the Opposition into voting against the Financial Resolution.
As I see it, paragraph 3 of the Resolution will preclude the Secretary of State for Scotland from carrying out the undertaking which I understood him to give. I gathered that he said that he was looking at the question of grants for upland farms and was seeing whether he could do something to help them in the Bill. However, paragraph 3 of the Resolution is so closely drawn that it would exclude all upland farms from gaining assistance of more than 25 per cent. for improvements. On that argument alone the Resolution should be withdrawn and I should have thought that my hon. and right hon. Friends would he prepared to undertake that if it were withdrawn and if the parts which are at present so narrowly drawn were widened the Opposition would allow the Resolution to go through without further debate.
We are anxious, in the interests of our constituents and hon. Members, to have a full and free discussion in Committee on whether the Government are justified to alter the whole formula of the 1957 Act for farm improvements. There may be a good case for reducing the rate of grant on some improvements from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent., but for other improvements—as I tried to explain earlier—the reverse should be the case. I am in favour of having a variable rate, but if this Financial Resolution is not amended this matter cannot be argued in Committee.
I have always protested at the way in which successive Governments have drawn Financial Resolutions, but I think


that the present Government may be commiserated with on the fact that never before has the House of Commons or a Committee of it had such a Resolution before it so tightly drawn that it will stultify all argument at a later stage.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy): I have been a little surprised at the speeches to which we have just listened—[Interruption.]—and if the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) will bide his time for just a moment I will explain why. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, unlike some of his hon. Friends and myself, has not been here throughout the debate. If he will wait a moment I will explain the position to him.
It is true—and we make no apology for this—that we felt that the time had come when we should widen the scope of the improvements under the scheme. In the course of the debate we have heard about the assistance which will be given for improvements which were previously not eligible for assistance. We thought that we should reduce the level from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent. and I ask the Committee to note that continuing the scheme in this revised form represents an additional £80 million for the farming industry. One hon. Gentleman opposite said earlier that we are speaking of the taxpayers' money. That is true, and in this instance £80 million more of the taxpayers' money will be provided by the Bill for the farming industry.
10.15 p.m.
We are told that we should not write the rate into the Financial Resolution. With all due respect to right hon. and hon. Members opposite, it was exactly this that was done in connection with the 1957 Act. The right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) can escape a little here, perhaps, because he says. "I have always protested against Financial Resolutions being tightly drawn." That may well be so, but the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who now complain are those who were responsible for the drafting of the 1957 Act in which the rate was laid down. There was no deviation in the rate even in that Act.
The inclusion of a maximum rate of grant towards the cost of amalgamations and boundary improvements is also in

accordance with the precedent of the Money Resolution of the 1957 Act. It is of no use the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) shaking his head—it is true. That is what happened in 1957.

Mr. Turton: But there was this difference, that before 1957 there was no improvement grant at all. The then Government said, "We will give a grant of up to that amount." If the present Government are reducing the grant from 33⅓ per cent. to 25 per cent., it is a very great difference.

Mr. Hoy: With respect, that is not the argument, and the right hon. Gentleman does not understand if he says that it is. What is complained of is that the rate is fixed within the Financial Resolution, and that, as a consequence, amendment cannot be made in Committee. That is exactly what was done in 1957, as the right hon. Member for Grantham will remember. I think that he had some responsibility for it. So it is of no use him now complaining about it.
It may be true that we have followed a bad precedent—I do not know; it is not for me to say. I only say that the precedent was established in 1957, and we have followed it. I have stated quite clearly and categorically that this Bill will provide £80 million, and that the grants will continue annually at a rate of about £11 million, which is not inconsiderable assistance. Hon. Members opposite sometimes do the agricultural industry more harm than good by such carping criticism, because they convey the impression, perhaps unintentionally, that the industry is always looking for something for nothing. We are here seeking to provide it with this amount.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) has asked for an assurance that any grant applied for up to enactment will be at a rate of 33⅓ per cent., but he must know that the money is running out, and running out quickly; and that it is useless accepting claims for this assistance when the money is not there. Until we provide assistance through this Bill, we can entertain only very few more claims, there is so little money left.
We shall be giving grants on an extended scale. As my right hon. Friend


the Secretary of State for Scotland, said the grants will be more widely spread. The tenant farmer will get certain assistance that he was not able to enjoy under the previous scheme. To that extent we will be spreading the money much better. It is because these precedents have already been established that I ask the House to approve the Financial Resolution.
Perhaps I may say just one word more. The hon. Gentleman said that perhaps we ought to have a Minister from the Treasury present, but he knows as well as I do that on these Bills it is the Departmental Minister who answers. He has had that job in the past, and we follow that precedent, too.

Mr. J. B. Godber: I must rise for a moment to take up this issue again because I must tell the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that his reply is thoroughly unsatisfactory and that he has not given any adequate reasons for drawing the Financial Resolution in this particular way.
It is not good enough for him to say that he is merely following the precedent of the 1957 Act. Of course we remember that. It was an entirely new provision, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said in an intervention. It was allowing for a third grant where there had been none before. It was a further extension and it was perfectly right to write it into the Financial Resolution. The Government are seeking now to reduce the level and it is done for one purpose alone. That is to stultify debate in Committee. Is the hon. Gentleman proud of stultifying debate? Is that what he desires to do? If he wishes to intervene, perhaps he will get up and do so.

Mr. Hoy: The right hon. Member had better not lose his temper. I do not want to stultify criticism in Committee, but I cannot understand his opposition tonight because he with his hon. Friends wrote the rate into the 1957 Act. It is that that he is worried about. Having done so and being caught out, he dislikes it, but that is what we have to put up with in political life.

Mr. Godber: That is not the position at all. Merely reiterating the statement does not alter the question I asked, which is

whether he is proud of stultifying debate in Committee. On that issue he has avoided a reply. It is a disgrace that the Government should be doing this. In my speech on Second Reading I specifically said that we should seek to deal with this matter in Committee. No attempt was made to point out that that would be impossible in Committee. Apparently the Government hoped that we would not notice these words in the Resolution. It is a disgraceful way to treat the House.
The Government are afraid of saying what they are doing. They are afraid of the feeling of farmers in the country. The figures I gave in my speech prove that it is not true that the rate of payment will be as great as it has been over recent months. It has been growing steadily way beyond the £11 million to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Because the Government know that they are cutting back, they are employing these shabby tactics, They cannot be proud of what they are doing. They have committed themselves to this amount. We shall take no further action—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—but we have made our protest publicly and clearly about the way in which the Government are behaving.

Mr. A. Woodburn: The right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) is showing a great deal of synthetic indignation. He knows very well that what he is doing tonight has been done in this Committee on almost every Bill that has come before us. What he wants to do is to drown the Bill by moving for such an increase as to make the rest of the Bill impossible to carry out.
He knows as well as any of us that when a Bill is framed it is framed as a complete pattern. The Government have to decide how much money is available for the farming industry in the working of this whole Bill. He can wreck it by increasing the amount of money for one particular part of the Bill. That is why the House of Commons procedure stipulates that when a Bill is introduced the amount of money available for the Bill must be stated by the Government. This matter is only part of a great Bill. The right hon. Member is concentrating on one little bit and forgetting the rest.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The right hon. Member must know, if he has read the


Bill, that some completely uncertain sums are involved in its implementation. What the Financial Resolution does, as he must surely know, is to set maxima, not exact figures.

Mr. Woodburn: Exactly. Nevertheless, the limits in regard to this amount are stipulated. The other amounts are more uncertain and latitude has been left in that case. The Opposition seeks to complain about the provisions of the Financial Resolution. This has been done when we were on the benches opposite in the same way. This is a game of politics. I hope that no farmer will be misled by this demonstration concentrating on one part of the Bill to befog farmers about the great benefits which will come from the Bill as a whole.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The right hon. Member is being too specious by far, as was the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. He did not attempt to answer the question I put to him about whether or not the present rate will continue until such time as the present Bill becomes an Act. The whole argument put up in defence of the Financial Resolution by the Government and by the right hon. Member has been that it is common Parliamentary practice for Governments of the day to state the maxima. All I am asking is that the Government should at least have the courage to set the maxima no higher than the existing law stands. If they had done that in this Financial Resolution, it would have enabled hon. Members on both sides to table Amendments for Standing Committee designed to see whether the existing rate should continue or whether some new reduced rate should operate.
That is all that this request that I have made tonight would involve. It does not for one moment suggest that in any way the House of Commons should seek to go beyond what received the Queen's Recommendation before this Financial Resolution was introduced. All it is asking is for the House of Commons to allow the Standing Committee which will study the Bill in detail to go into the issue with very great care as to whether the existing rate should continue or whether some new reduced rate should apply.
The effect of the Resolution as drafted by the Government is to prevent any con-

sideration being given to the continuation of the rate as it stands today and to impose upon the House of Commons willy-nilly, whether it likes it or not, in Committee and on further stages of the Bill, a limit of a reduction down to one-quarter, whereas hitherto it has been one-third. This is a gross abuse of the use of the Financial Resolution. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary's answer is highly unsatisfactory.

Mr. Hoy: May 1 add one sentence? The House of Commons gave the Bill a Second Reading. Clause 29(8,a) lays down when the last application for grant will be received. That is the date to which the hon. Gentleman and others have just given a Second Reading.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is it a fact that during the Second Reading debate my right hon. Friend gave notice that he would be raising things in Standing Committee which the Government spokesman, knowing the terms of the Financial Resolution, knew that my right hon. Friend could not raise?

Mr. Hoy: It is not for me to reply to the Second Reading debate.

Mr. George Y. Mackie: I have listened to this squabble. I am tired of hearing past sin quoted as precedent for present and subsequent sin. In this way we shall never get our procedure right. Right hon. and hon. Members on this side seem to have presented a much better case than that put forward by the Government.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow.

UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question put (pursuant to Standing Order No. 62 (Public Bills relating exclusively to Scotland)), That the Bill be committed to the Scottish Standing Committee.— [Mrs. Hart.]

Question agreed to.

Bill (deemed to have been read a Second time) committed to the Scottish Standing Committee.

GREY SEALS (FARNE ISLANDS)

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I beg to move,
That the Grey Seals Protection (Farne Islands) (Suspension of Close Season) Order, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 26th October, in the last Session of Parliament. be not made.
I want to make clear from the outset that I move the Prayer, in the terms set out on the Order Paper, to invite my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to explain the views of his Ministry on this matter, and not to embark on a full discussion of the complicated and argumentative issue which has been debated, sometimes bitterly, in the country now for some years.
It is of the greatest importance that the culling of grey seals on the Farne Islands should be briefly discussed this evening and the circumstances made clear. I do not want to discuss the whole background of this issue, except to say that there is very real division of opinion among scientists in this country and elsewhere about the procedure that is being adopted, and I want to make clear that I have always opposed this procedure of the culling.
I move the Prayer on behalf of the National Trust. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and I are members of the executive of the Trust and we believe that it is important that its view on this matter should be expressed in the House. As I think my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary knows, the National Trust agreed some three years ago that culling should take place over a period of three years, although there was very strong opposition to this from among members of the Trust and more widely in the country, and certainly in the North-East. The National Trust agreed to this culling for three years, but it has made clear publicly that this year is the final year of that three-year period and that it is unable to accept the position that further culls should take place next year.
Now we understand that the Ministry requires some extension of its present facilities for carrying on the cull for some further period this year to complete this existing year's cull. The National Trust has accepted this year's cull and therefore cannot object to the completion of the cull within this season. We understand that because of weather conditions and other matters it may be necessary for some further day's culling to take place. I gather, for example, that it was not possible for a cull to take place yesterday, when it was officially recognised as such, because of weather conditions, and no one knows how many more days may elapse before culling can take place this year.
The National Trust, therefore, accepts the necessity for the completion of this year's cull, but the Order would authorise a cull to take place next year as well if we do not insert a caveat now—a warning to the Minister and my hon. Friend that the National Trust has declared publicly that it would not agree at present to a continuation of the cull for a further year. As is known, the National Trust is the owner of the property concerned in this case—the Farne Islands. It became the owner for the very purpose of protecting wild life there, including the seals as well as bird life, and for the protection of the wonderful scenic beauty of that area which is admired by people from all over the world. Another related object of the National Trust's coming into ownership of the area is to preserve facilities for people to see the wonders of the district. As a Northumbrian myself, I can, I think, acclaim with some personal pride the undoubtedly unique quality of this area.
It is important, therefore, that we should receive from the Minister tonight an indication of his Ministry's purpose in bringing the Order forward. We can understand its necessity in order to complete this year's cull, but I hope that he will be able to assure us that he does not intend to use the Order to carry the culling procedure on for further years, or, at least, that he will ensure that there is another opportunity for full discussion of the matter before a further cull takes place next year.
For myself—this is not only a personal view but is that of some scientists, too,


including some in the North-East—any suggested extension of culling is not based upon sufficiently accurate scientific evidence, and we should be most unhappy if the Minister used this Order to carry on a procedure which has aroused very strong opposition. We understand very well the views of fishermen with regard to the salmon fisheries, but I hope that my hon. Friend will give an assurance that there will be an opportunity for further discussion before any continuation of the Order is proceeded with. On the assumption that that will be forthcoming, I and, I am sure, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury will be prepared to let the matter rest at this stage, hoping that further scientific evidence can be brought forward during the coming weeks and months to establish much more accurately what the true position is.

10.37 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: Like the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), I seek not to oppose the Order but to elicit a little more information from the Minister about it. It is not surprising that this should be a slightly controversial question. Not only is it a controversial subject but the Fame Islands in particular, which are visited by many people especially to see the grey seals, are bound to be an area of special interest not only to visitors but to others who are aware of the background of this controversy.
The topic with which the Order deals was examined in great detail in the report of the Consultative Committee on Grey Seals and Fisheries published about two years ago under the auspices of the Nature Conservancy, which I have consuled with the object of discovering where the balance of fact in this matter lies. The Committee estimated at that time, when discussing the Farne Islands, that there were about 3,500 seals there, or about 8 per cent. of the total population, and it was agreed that, unless some measure of this kind were taken the potential increase would be about 1,000 a year. It was further agreed that the object should be to reduce this figure by about one quarter, to 750. I do not think that anyone can dispute the authenticity of that point.
Two other points were made. It was desirable to keep the killing to a minimum, and it was desirable to avoid disturbance, if possible. With those two objects in mind, it was recommended that the procedure should be spread over five years. Then, since suggestions were offered as to the prospective results of killing only cows and female pups, the Committee recommended that there should be a combination of the two methods.
My first question is whether the hon. Gentleman can tell us how the Order will bear on the recommendation of the Committee. Is it to be the culling off of a combination of cows and additional female pups and the numbers adjusted accordingly? Until that is clear we are not arguing about the same thing. My second point is that the Committee recognise that the effect of the increase of the Farne Island seal population on fisheries was not clear and that the biological prospects were obscure. Is any more information available now?
These recommendations, on which, I take it, the Order is based, were scientific and were agreed by the Nature Conservancy, in which I have a great deal of confidence, but, as the hon. Gentleman said, there is a possibility of the National Trust withdrawing its agreement in the future. The reason for this is not clear, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will say a word about it.
I think that the real source of anxiety is whether the slaughtering of the seals will be limited to the cull authorised by the Order. Early this year it was made clear that the Order exposed the seals to promiscuous hunting and killing. The point is that under the 1932 Act the close season is 1st September to 31st December, and the penalty for a breach of the close season Order is about £5 a seal. But the effect of this Order is to suspend the close season, and that means that poachers are liable only to a fine of £5, a nominal penalty of £5, regardless of the slaughter that they achieve—a single fine of £5 under the byelaws of the National Trust. This is an important point because it makes a difference between scientific killing and other killing that may be introduced or encouraged by the Order. I think we are entitled to ask what the consequences will be. Elsewhere on the coast there have undoubtedly been raids,


with killing and cruelty, such as on parts of the Norfolk coast. What are the prospects for the Farn Islands?
I overwhelmingly accept the need for a sane view about this and not an unduly sentimental one. Baby seals are, unfortunately, endearing objects, and their slaughter is bound to arouse protest even if authorised by the hon. Gentleman. That does not concern me unduly. What concerns me—this is a point that the hon. Gentleman may accept—is the knowledge from past experience in other fields that control sometimes advocated with a wealth of circumstantial scientific data leads to the most unexpected results. Unexpectedly species are rendered rare or extinct by measures which have the most solid backing from the most respectable sources. This is where I have a twinge of uneasiness about even this Order, in spite of the respectable recommendations that it has.
The Committee I mentioned recommended that there should be continual study of distribution, population and biology on the seals and, in particular, of the changes which would be brought about by control. Is this continuing? Can the hon. Gentleman say a word about this? If it is, who is responsible for it? We should like to be quite sure that the scientific supervision is still in hand. Can it be guaranteed that the future of the Order will depend on the results of such a study and not simply upon pressure, however legitimate, from the fishery interests, which could lead to unforeseen consequences for seals? I should like more information on these points before the Order is passed.

10.45 p.m.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: I do not speak with the expert knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) or of the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). Probably I represent more the public point of view, which is very much concerned about this Order and the killings of grey seals which have been taking place and are to continue. I prefer to use the word "killing" rather than "culling" because it is easy to deceive ourselves with a gentle word like "culling" into forgetting just what we are really undertaking.
The public is concerned about this continuing killing of grey seals because

it does not understand why such continuance is necessary. Quite frankly, neither do I. I have heard the arguments advanced for it in the past, arguments which have been advanced again tonight. But it is still not clear to me why it has to go on nor how long it is to continue.
Although the Order is to continue the process for only a further 12 months there is public concern that the process may be repeated indefinitely year after year. It is very easy, once a process has started, for it to go on because no very strong movement is organised against it or because no very strong arguments are put against it. It gains a momentum of its own which can be dangerous.
As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, in matters of this kind it is extremely easy to go wrong. The grey seal is a very attractive creature to everyone, it seems, except the salmon fishermen. It is an animal which we should be very sorry to lose completely as we have lost so many other animals and birds through misguided control measures. It is possible, with the best will and advice in the world, to go too far and reduce the seal population to a point where it dies out altogether. Therefore, we must watch the position very closely. We must have the facts. We must have full knowledge of what we are doing and that is why we ask my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to say more about this Order and what is proposed.
A big problem of our time—it is big even in relation to so many world events—is to find the right balance in the world between men and animals and the other species. It is necessary from all points of view to do so. We live in a tight civilisation, so densely populated and with so many claims on our resources from men and animals, that we have to be very sure that we get the balance right.
It is particularly for this reason, because there is concern about these continual killings of grey seals, that there is a feeling that we have perhaps reached the point where we ought to stop. I ask my hon. Friend for more information. If he will not agree to take back the Order, I hope that at least he will assure us that he will look at the matter again before any further killings or cullings take place.

10.50 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Kimball: I assure the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) that it is certain that we are unlikely to lose the grey seals around our coasts. They are to be found not only in the Farne Islands. We have the largest colonies in the world at North Rona, in the Orkneys, where there were over 900 in 1964. I hope she will realise that there are far too many grey seals. We are the only country in the world which does not pay a bounty to fishermen to kill them and which protects them. We have more than enough.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) talked about the balance of nature. The grey seal has been protected for so long and the protection of our fisheries has been so poor that, as the Nature Conservancy Report for September, 1964, said, there is little evidence of seals disappearing from around our coasts. Indeed, the colonies have been getting completely out of hand.
This matter has been debated for many years and it would be wrong tonight to reiterate all the arguments as to why the cull is necessary. One of the reasons is the damage done to fisheries and nets——

Mr. Blenkinsop: Is it not true that there has been a good deal of improvement in the design of nets and that the new form of net has succeeded in avoiding the kind of damage to which the hon. Gentleman refers?

Mr. Kimball: I agree, and accept the point. But I do not think there is any doubt that the cull itself is necessary. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) asked for further information. In 1964 there was a symposium at Cambridge, at which no fewer than 34 learned professors who had studied the whole problem of seals came together. They came to the conclusion that the culling of the seals round our coasts was the only possible way to handle the problem. The House should not delude itself into believing that there is any lack of research into the problem.
I hope the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will give us an assurance, bearing in mind the feelings which have been expressed, that the work of management

and the major cullings of grey seals around our coasts will be allowed to continue. Otherwise very serious damage will be done to our fisheries.
It seems that the National Trust is now experiencing qualms about the management of the grey seal on the Farne Islands. I think that the best thing would be for the National Trust to hand over this business to the Nature Conservancy. I do not see why the National Trust should be managing a herd of grey seals on the Fame Islands at all. If the National Trust is worried about it, it should get out of the grey seals business and leave it to people who understand it and who have the confidence of this House.

10.53 p.m.

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: I come from a constituency on the north-east coast of Scotland where a lot of damage happens every year to salmon and salmon nets. I have seen it at first hand—not only the damage that is done physically to the nets but also damage to the salmon through being clawed and part-eaten by the seals.
Therefore, I should like to reinforce the argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) that we must not allow sentiment to cloud our views of this issue, much as I respect the expressions of sentiment and the remarks of the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler).
I believe there is plenty of scientific research into this subject, and I would particularly mention the Marine Research publications by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland. I should like to refer to the report in Paper No. 2 on "Seal Damage to Salmon Fisheries", published this year. In that report, which is based on scientific evidence which has been collected properly, it is estimated that the annual damage to salmon round our coasts is of the order of £67,000 a not inconsiderable sum.
I know that these arguments have been debated before, but there is a slightly more worrying factor which has not been mentioned in this debate. It is brought out in another Marine Research publication by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1963, on the incidence


of the cod worm and its infestation of cod and salmon. A great deal of research has been done on this subject since 1945 by various research institutes, and particularly by the Torrie Research Institute at Aberdeen.
As the result of representations by medical officers of health and doctors in hospitals and elsewhere, the research was instigated and it has shown that the incidence of infestation of codworm rises around the area of the Farne Islands. A definite relationship has been established between the distribution of seals and the incidence of the codwormֵ This is one factor which may have been overlooked but which has a considerable bearing on this matter and on the interests of the fishing industry beyond the immediate interests of salmon which are usually mentioned.
We must get into perspective the figures for the seal population so that the talk about the disappearance of the species may be ended. In 1914, it was estimated that the total grey seal population was about 500. In the light of later research, this was obviously a conservative estimate and a 1963 report showed the estimated population as being about 30,000. Bearing in mind those figures and the obvious increase over the last 40 or 50 years, we have to get the matter into perspective.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I join with the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) in inquiring what the Minister's intentions are if the Order goes through the House. The hon. Gentleman and I are both members of the Executive of the National Trust. He on balance is inclined to be against the culling of seals. I am not so certain that I agree with him, but it shows our considerable disquiet that I am happy to join with him tonight in questioning the Order.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of the beauty of the Farne Islands. The prosperity and health of the people who live there, and of the fishermen, are obviously also very dear to his heart, as to mine. Apart from our joint membership of the National Trust, the other reason why we can agree about opposing the Order is that we are both Northumbrians.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) asked some very pertinent questions and in so far as some of them concerned the Trust, it may be to the advantage of the House if I try to answer them. He asked why the Trust had apparently changed its policy. The answer to that answers his second question. He asked if the effect of the cull was obscure, and what would be the result of killing seals on the Farne Islands. The Trust agrees that the effect of the cull is obscure and for that very reason the Trust has unanimously concluded that we cannot tolerate this culling without in our own minds being completely convinced that it is both necessary and beneficial.
We have allowed three years of the cull to take place and there does not seem to be good enough scientific evidence to support the view that it is essential to the preservation of the fisheries, or that the population of the seals has grown to such an extent that it is necessary forcibly, so to speak, to reduce it.
He referred to people other than the Minister and his servants who might try to take seals on the Farne Islands. I can assure him that the Trust will most rigorously prevent any other person from landing on the islands with that purpose and if someone were to land and attempt to take seals or kill them, we would certainly invoke our byelaws and arrest him.
We cannot prevent people taking seals in the middle of the sea or on some other island or shore, but the Order relates only to the Farne Islands, over which the National Trust has rights of ownership. I agree with my right hon. Friend that from past experience it seems that the strength of the 1932 Act probably is not sufficient to allow others to be prevented when the Minister takes power to make a cull.
My right hon. Friend raised the question of the balance of natural forces which would result from the culling of seals. My hon. Friends the Members for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball) and North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) both touched upon this, as did the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler). This underlines the doubts in the minds of the Trust about what the effect of all this will be.
The effect of any action upon animals and their whole way of life and their habits is difficult to predict and is something about which we know surprisingly little. I do not believe that the scientists are certain what the habits of the seal are, what its life span and its main diet are and what would be the effect of killing a certain proportion on the Farne Islands. It may well be that a reduced population would breed all the harder, or that if the population grew too much, serious disease would control the population in its own natural way. Possibly the cod worm, of which I had not heard before tonight, is an important factor which we should consider, and we will be expecting from the Minister a dissertation on the effect upon the population of seals of the cod worm, if that is in order in this debate.
These, however, are uncertainties. The Trust would like these and other uncertainties to be cleared up and to be presented with evidence which is so strong and sure that it would have no doubt and no reasonable possibility of objecting to the killing of Farne Island seals. Without those assurances and that evidence, however, the Trust is quite right to question the wisdom of doing this.
The hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green objected to the word "cull" and preferred "kill" as being more accurate. I am inclined to agree with her. The word "cull", I think, derives from the French cueillir, which is normally taken to mean plucking, as of flowers. I recognise the point made by the hon. Lady that it is rather too soft a word to use for the process by which these seals are killed.
I hope, therefore, that the Minister will tonight give us the assurance which we seek that whatever may be his policy in the future, he will not use the Order to institute killing in the year 1966. We recognise that the Trust has undertaken to give him permission to complete this years' killing, but that does not, in our opinion, allow him to enter into the Farne Islands next year.
If during the coming few months the Minister can produce evidence to convince the Trust that the stand which it has taken is wrong and that the policy it is pursuing is unwise, surely it can reverse its decision and allow future culling to take place. I do not believe, however, that this will happen, and I believe that

the evidence will be unlikely to persuade the Trust.
We would not, therefore, tonight want to oppose the Order simply on the ground of preventing the Minister going to the Farne Islands this year. If he will give us an undertaking to that extent, I am sure that the hon. Member for South Shields and I would allow the Order to pass and then, perhaps, we could discuss the matter early in the season next year and come to a conclusion before the 1966 cull.

11.4 p.m.

Dr. M. S. Miller (Glasgow, Kelvin-grove): I am very much in agreement with the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). Not only do scientists lack exact knowledge of the habits and the life of seals but they lack considerable knowledge of the life and habits of the salmon which we are seeking to protect.
I appreciate the erudition of the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith), but I suggest that it is more than sentiment that makes me question this Order. Like the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, I worry very much about interfering with nature. As a doctor, I think that this is justified on occasion, but it must be very strenuously and strictly controlled. Unless it is, we, as mere human beings, do not know what forces we are unleashing. I hate to suggest that because these seals are grey, and presumably coloured, this is another instance of colour prejudice and that if they were white they would not be subject to this Order.
I have no strong objection to the Order itself, but I ask that the position be watched very closely. In this country we do not have an over-abundance of wild life of any kind. By means of culling, or by other methods used for thinning out animal populations, we have in the past exterminated some species. I ask my hon. Friend to watch the position very carefully, and to make sure that if there is the slightest indication that this process has gone far enough, the whole position will be reconsidered next year.

11.7 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South


Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler), for putting down this Prayer. It gives me the opportunity to explain the reason for this Order.
Perhaps I might deal first with the question of cod worm. I shall not give the House a dissertation on this topic, even though I know a little about it because I have had to discuss it with the research people at Torry and with our own scientists at Lowestoft who have been examining this question for some time. As with many other things, it takes time before one can say that one really believes that one thing is the cause of the other. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) said that he would like me to be able to give an assurance on scientific knowledge, but he is asking a little too much, because even scientists do not agree about what should be done. In fact, there is a certain difference of opinion about that, but I shall say why we have decided to take action.
In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green, may I say that culling means what it says—killing if she prefers it that way. It is a revolting thing. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, do not like making Orders of this kind. Indeed, we do not like having to ask the Ministry's servants to carry out Orders of this kind, so I hope that once and for all we can get rid of the idea that we get some sort of satisfaction from having to make Orders like this. We do this on the advice of the scientists who assure us that it is absolutely necessary, not only for the protection of fisheries, but for the existence of the seals themselves.
I am told that, unless certain precautions are taken, considerable suffering would take place among the seal pups on the Farne Islands because of the tremendous increase in the population of the seals there. Culling of grey seals took place on the Farne Islands in 1963 and 1964, and the need for the draft Order arises from my right hon. Friend's decision to authorise a further cull this year—a cull which should, in fact, be taking place this week, but I will come

to that later. The cull has been authorised because of the damage which is continuing to be done to the fisheries; and it must be remembered that the number of seals in the Farne colony is now more than 4,000. Their numbers go on increasing.
The Minister has acted throughout on the advice of an expert committee, mainly composed of scientists. I give that assurance to the right hon. Member for Ashford. This committee was formerly a committee of the Nature Conservancy and is now a committee of the Natural Environment Research Council. It has investigated each year the facts of the damage and has advised the Minister. The committee recommended in 1963 that, to control the amount of damage, the culls should take place annually for five years. It was recommended that 360 female pups should be culled during each of the five years. However, my right hon. Friend felt that he should make a decision each year in the light of the most up-to-date information available to him. Thus, this Order is made annually so that he can look at the position each year.
The current Order, which was made on 4th December, 1964, made provision for one year. This suspension comes to an end on Friday of this week. If the cull which should have been carried out at this very moment had been taking place there would have been no need for my right hon. Friend even to have made the Order. I am bound to tell the House that at the time my right hon. Friend took his decision there was always the possibility that adverse weather conditions might delay the cull and, as I have said, that was why my right hon. Friend took the precaution of laying the Order.
The cull was due to start yesterday, but because of strong winds of up to 60 m.p.h. I am told that the helicopter which is used to carry our officers to the Fame Islands has so far been unable to take off. The forecast is that the winds will drop tomorrow, but I do not think that we can rely on completing the cull by the end of the week. Thus, the Order is not designed to legislate for another year, as it has been suggested. It is designed to cover this particular period; no more than that.
I agree that this has given some trouble to the National Trust because the Trust is the proprietor of the Fame Islands. I


have some sympathy with the members of the National Trust. I am a member of the National Trust for Scotland and for some years I have served on its executive committee. I know just how they feel about the matter.
Before I conclude, I should like to say a word about the National Trust, first of all expressing my right hon. Friend's gratitude for the way in which the Trust has co-operated in the carrying out of the culls which have so far been authorised. I am very conscious that this has not been an easy matter for the Trust, that some of its members have very strong objections to the culling of the grey seals, and that, indeed, as the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury and my hon. Friends have said, it has indicated that it would be unwilling to agree to culls being carried out on its property in future years.
While I have great sympathy with the positon in which the Trust finds itself, I hope that it will not prejudge this question. As I have said, my right hon. Friend is keeping an open mind on whether or not a fresh cull will be necessary, and I hope that the Trust will do the same. If the evidence next year convinces my right hon. Friend that the culls should continue, he will be very ready to furnish the Trust with that evidence, and I hope that the Trust, too, will be ready to consider the matter on its merits in that event.
That is the reason for the cull, and the way in which it is carried out, and that is our position vis-à-vis the National Trust. The position is that if we could have guaranteed that the whole operation would have been over this week, my right hon. Friend would not have found it necessary even to lay the draft Order. It will cover the period necessary for completing this year's operation. I give the House the assurance that if any further action is to be taken next year, we shall provide the House with an opportunity of discussing it.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: Before my hon. Friend sits down, can he say whether the evidence which may be produced next year to the National Trust will also be made generally available?

Mr. Hoy: I would not like to say off the cuff that we would do this. This is

a matter, first of all, between the Ministry and the National Trust, and I think that the National Trust would want the information in confidence in the first place. It may be that as a result of consultation taking place, another decision would be arrived at. In the meantime, I give the assurance that we will first give it to the National Trust if we are to ask the Trust to do something. I would not like to venture an opinion on what would happen after that.

Mr. Blenkinsop: With the leave of the House, I thank my hon. Friend for giving us the further assurance, for which we asked, that this Order will not be used to determine the issue as to future years but is necessary in order to complete the present cull. I had heard that weather conditions had not enabled the cull to start. Nevertheless, I hope that my hon. Friend will do his best to see that every possible piece of scientific evidence is provided to assist us in this matter. In view of his assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

REDUNDANCY PAYMENTS REBATESREGULATIONS

11.19 p.m.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: I beg to move:
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Redundancy Payments Rebates Regulations 1965 (S.I., 1965. No. 1893), dated 1st November 1965, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th November, in the last Session of Parliament, be annulled.
I apologise to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour for putting down this Prayer on the same evening as the House has had such an interesting discussion on the grey seals. Being new to the House, I did not appreciate that so many hon. Members—and, in particular, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller)—were so interested in that subject.
The Order provides that where redundancy of 10 or more employees is contemplated, 28 days' notice of dismissal must be given. If the employer fails to do this, he loses 10 per cent. of the rebate to which he is entitled under the Act. The Act mentions loss of rebate, but


many employers regard this as a kind of fine for not being able to give such notice.
I raise this subject because one industry in particular will find it almost impossible to give 28 days' notice in many circumstances, and that is the ship repairing industry, an industry which is pretty vital to the country. I can see four particular difficulties that could arise. First of all, it is almost impossible for ship repairing firms to estimate from day to day precisely how much labour will be required. let alone know 28 days in advance. There is no telling when ships will come in for repair, and there is no telling when there may be delays in their arrival because of storms, collisions, breakdown, or diversion to another port because of strikes.
The second difficulty which can arise is in steel deliveries. Although the shipyards are well served by private enterprise steel, it is not unknown for delays in deliveries to take place, perhaps with as little as a week's notice. This can have a considerable effect on the employment position. A particular question relating to Manchester has been brought to my attention. On some occasions the Manchester Ship Canal is blocked for lengthy periods and such a blockage could prevent the arrival in a dock of some ships for repair and could involve sudden payoffs. When a ship is nearing completion—this applies particularly to passenger liners—it is almost impossible to determine 28 days' in advance when an individual's job or the job of a particular trade, will finish. My fear is that, recognising this impracticability, far too many employers will fail to put in a 28 days' notice of dismissal under these Regulations and lose the benefit to which they are entitled. To hedge against possible redundancy, they might put in a notice to the Ministry which will remove much of the benefit which otherwise would accrue.
I do not think I need prove that it is often impracticable for the industry to give the notice because in discussions with the Ministry and in correspondence it has been accepted that in some circumstances the shipping industry will find it difficult to provide the 28 days' notice. The Ministry says that it intends to implement this provision in a reasonable way. I want to know what is suggested that the

Ministry will accept as a reasonable excuse for not giving 28 days' notice. Will it accept delays in steel supplies as an excuse? I fancy that it would.
Suppose that there is a repair contract from a regular customer which is suddenly cancelled. Would that be a reasonable justification for not giving 28 days' notice? When it becomes known that a major pay-off is to take place, the pace of the work sometimes goes a little slower. In some circumstances the employers might wish to give as a reason for not giving the 28 days' notice that the general awareness that such a state of redundancy would take place would result in a slowing down of production, not only in the trade concerned but also in other trades. The ship repair industry is facing a difficult time and it would like assurance on this point which it feels could cause damage to the industry.
There are many other points I had hoped to raise, but I will end now in the hope that I have left sufficient time for a reply.

11.24 p.m.

Sir Edward Brown: For the same reasons as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) has given the House, I join him in this Prayer.
We raise this matter not because we are against the principle of the Act, or against the principles in the Regulations. I think the Parliamentary Secretary can give an assurance of our attitude in Committee on the Bill. We are concerned that as we had a good Bill we should also have good regulations. I have discovered that there is a passage in the Regulations which does not line up with the Act. There is a section relating to termination of notice which is irregular in relation to the Act. In one case it specifies five weeks and in another four weeks. I think the Parliamentary Secretary has had his attention drawn to that. On these grounds I join my hon. Friend in praying that the Regulations be annulled.

11.25 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Ernest Thornton): I would admit at once, in reply to the point raised by the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) that there is a defect in these Regulations. We in the Ministry noticed it only this morning,


and are now taking steps to substitute 21 days for 28 days. In that way the firm undertaking which my right hon. Friend gave, through myself, in Committee will be fufilled, that is not to require more than 28 days' notice. Having given that assurance, I hope that the hon. Member will not press his point.
So far as the subject raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) is concerned, I readily admit also that there are certain difficulties in the shipbuilding industry as there are, probably, in the construction industry. It is our hope that perhaps these industries will get together with the trade unions concerned and, possibly, formulate a scheme which will meet their own particular requirements. I would remind the hon. Member that the Act does provide for this, but I would point out to the hon. Member for Cathcart that questions of notice will arise only where there have been two years or more of service. Under the Contracts of Employment Act, if an employee has two years' continuous service, then the employer is under a legal obligation to give two weeks' notice or two weeks' pay in lieu. If an employee has more than live years' service, then the employer is under obligation to give four weeks' notice.
I believe that the Regulations will be interpreted reasonably, and that it will not be a question of officials in the Ministry of Labour giving a final decision on these claims. If the employer feels aggrieved, then he has a right of recourse to an independent tribunal which will interpret what is thought to be reasonable. As the chairman of each tribunal will have with him assessors from both the employers' and the trade union sides, it should not be difficult to achieve a reasonable decision.
Where it is impossible or unreasonable for an employer to give the notice which is prescribed, there will not be any financial penalty. It is also not our present intention that these decisions on the 10 per cent. deduction from the rebate will be taken at the local level. In the first stages, at least, all cases for making the 10 per cent. permissible deduction will be referred to headquarters and decided there. If the employer feels the decision is unjust, then he will have the

right of recourse, as I have said, to a tribunal.
Having said that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow these Regulations to go through on the basis of the amendment which we shall lay forthwith and which will entirely fulfil the undertakings I gave earlier on behalf of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: I wish only at this hour to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his reply and for the assurance which he has given.
In the circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

WEST SUFFOLK (TOWN EXPANSION PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lawson.]

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: My constituency includes by far the larger part of the County of West Suffolk and, like the rest of East Anglia, it is undergoing great changes. The biggest change is in its population, which is scheduled to grow by 50 per cent. within the next generation. The greatest part of this increase will come from the town expansion programme which is to bring in about 40,000 people from London. These new people, who represent a most valuable injection of human talent, are normally referred to as "overspill". I would urge the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and all Government Departments to get rid once and for all of this ugly word. It is nothing more than an insult to human beings to describe them as overspill.
The town expansion programme offers bright prospects for West Suffolk, provided that it is properly handled. But it also poses problems, not the least of which is the need for more money to lift up the standards of the entire social infrastructure of a county which is primarily agricultural. We do not have that money, because we are not a rich county. This raises questions of how Suffolk is to provide things like sports arenas and libraries. We can hardly pay


for them out of local rates, but it is about specific problems that I want to speak tonight and, first, those of Bury St. Edmunds.
The question is whether expansion will improve Bury or not. So far, the town has handled its growth pattern better than most other towns. Its council has retained control, instead of handing it over to the Greater London Council. Its new housing estates have their problems, as I can testify, but, broadly speaking, I think that the Minister will agree that Bury has done well. Whether it continues to do so depends in large measure on central Government. The Minister has to decide about the borough's town map and I hope that he will ensure that there is an important place in Bury St. Edmunds for more home owners. Far too many young Families who want their own house built by a builder of their own choice are having to move out of the town to nearby villages to find a plot of land. The town is, therefore, in some danger of losing its most valuable younger citizens. They work in Bury but live and pay rates elsewhere.
My second concern is that Bury's population expansion should be matched by an adequate build-up of social amenities. There are few towns so well provided with cultural pursuits, but we need more and better recreational facilities. With the support of the county council I recently approached the Army Lands Department to inquire whether Gibraltar Barracks, the home of the East Anglian Regiment, could not be made available for civilian purposes. I am glad to say that when the regiment moves out, in 1968 or 1969, most of this extremely valuable site seems likely to be sold to the county council and the borough. It could be used for excellent purposes—for a badly needed extension of the West Suffolk College, for an indoor swimming pool and sporting arena where Bury's very good football team may be able to move from its present grounds.
I urge upon the Minister to use all his influence to see that we are not held up, for years, by Treasury parsimony over loan sanctions in the acquisition and development of this important site. Bury needs Gibraltar Barracks as

an integral part of its town expansion. The sooner we get it the better.
I turn now to the other expansion towns in my constituency. I shall say little of Mildenhall except to refute those who have sought to attach to this fine little town and its able rural district council the odious label of a colour bar. Mildenhall has not and never has had a colour bar. Its council and its people seek only by wise forethought to ensure that hasty development does not cause unnecessary problems for the future.
In Newmarket, town expansion is unfortunately bedevilled by disagreements. I regret to say that local political candidates have been trying to get into the act for partisan advantage. I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that this complex issue should be handled as far as possible in objective and nonpartisan terms for the benefit of all concerned.
The Minister is now studying Newmarket's proposals. I should like to have a talk with him before he makes any decisions, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary can give an assurance tonight that, in any plans which are approved for Newmarket's future, he will have regard to three main points. First, it is a West Suffolk town. Second, its primary business activity, racing, makes a unique and extremely valuable contribution to our national balance of payments. Third, far from wanting to destroy racing, the town council has specifically stated that expansion is to be balanced and limited.
I turn now to Haverhill, and, on behalf of the people who live there, I have some questions to ask about the medical and social facilities and the economic prospects which lie ahead. First, housing. Much of it is good in Haverhill, but some of it leaves a good deal to be desired. On the new estates, I have myself seen numerous cases of sloppy construction. In one brand new house which I visited, the new tenant found a heap of rubble, a dead mouse and a packet of half-eaten sandwiches walled in behind the splash-board in his bathroom. In other houses I have visited, Haverhill families have shown me walls which were wringing wet, doors and windows which did not fit, leaking ceilings, and back yards which


were seven inches deep in water because no drains had been installed.
Many of these shortcomings may well be the result of going too fast, but, whatever be the reason, it is the people of Haverhill who have to put up with them—the tenants who have to live with built-in defects, and the officials of the Haverhill council—to whom I pay tribute, particularly to the town clerk—who are sometimes overwhelmed with complaints from people who want leaking taps, draughty windows or ill-fitting doors put right overnight.
These are the questions I want the Minister to answer as regards housing in Haverhill. Who precisely is responsible for seeing that contractors do a good job, with the taxpayers' money? To what extent do the Haverhill houses, specifically on the Clements Estate, conform to the Parker Morris standards of space and heating?
Now, the medical situation in Haverhill. It is nowhere near good enough. New people arriving in the town have virtually no choice of doctor; they must go on whichever list happens to be less full. There is no hospital, and, on the present plans, there will not be one for 15 or 20 years. I have talked to many young mothers in Haverhill who are genuinely worried about the lack of maternity facilities. What happens in many cases is that a young woman will have to walk up to a mile to the middle of the town to get a bus—which sometimes goes past her because it is full—and she then has a long and difficult journey to either Newmarket or Cambridge. When she gets there, she may well have to wait several hours for a return service. On a cold winter's day, with two or three children hanging on her arm, this can be a miserable experience. In 1965, it is not good enough.
With the support of the Haverhill town clerk, I recently went to see the regional hospital board, and the chairman told me that there had been almost no consultation with his authority over the build-up of population. It seems that an obstetric consultant will soon be making regular visits to Haverhill, and this is a start, but if we cannot have a hospital—which is something which I profoundly regret—at least let there be an extension of the local clinic, with a permanent staff

nurse and a telephone operator who can get hold of a doctor right away when accidents occur. Let there also be better provision for getting patients and their relatives to the hospitals. I should like to see a regular bus for hospital visitors going from Haverhill to Newmarket and, perhaps, to Cambridge, too, on one afternoon each week.
My third point about Haverhill concerns jobs and wages. There is not enough of either. The credit squeeze may have something to do with it, but the situation at the moment is that, in a county which otherwise has a shortage of labour, Haverhill employment exchange shows about 100 men out of work. There is very little casual employment available for women and boys. There is very little overtime in many Haverhill factories, and many men in the town are travelling considerable distances to find work, after moving out there from London.
This is a disturbing picture against the background of an expansion programme in which jobs and houses are supposed to go together. I think that we should face the truth that Haverhill industry is not at the moment expanding as quickly as originally expected. I hope that the Minister will pay close attention to this, for either Haverhill must attract more industry or the rate of its population expansion may have to be slowed down. It does not help for British Railways to be closing down Haverhill station, and perhaps the Minister will say how he sees this making sense in an expanding town.
Lastly, I want to mention the need of Haverhill for more social amenities, post boxes and telephone kiosks, shops, a community centre, a better library, a bigger post office, more buses and more sports facilities. All these things take time. They also cost money. Time may well bring them. But the point I want to stress is that for those who have to wait and go without there is no comfort in being told that somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue. I hope the Minister will try to avoid the kind of answer which says that if only we wait all will be provided. Instead, I ask him to answer my specific questions, which I will sum up for his convenience.
First, as regards Haverhill, will he take care that the build up of housing and


population does not run ahead of the provision of employment and social and medical amenities? We do not want to have a lopsided town. In particular, will he be wary about grandiose plans to push up population to far higher levels for which the economic foundations and resources simply do not exist.
Second, as regards Bury St. Edmunds, will he do his best to ensure that permission to redevelop Gibraltar Barracks for the community is not protractedly delayed?
Third, as regards Newmarket, will he do his utmost, as I have tried to do, to bring the conflicting parties into sensible agreement? There can be no good future for Newmarket unless racing and the urban district council agree.
Finally, with regard to West Suffolk as a whole, will he bear in mind that, while we welcome change, we want to civilise it. We accept the need for expansion. It is no less than our national duty to receive the people from London who come to the East Anglian countryside in search of new homes. We are glad to have them. But, while accepting expansion and all that goes with it, we want to preserve some of the character of our countryside and ancient towns. I am sure that the Minister would be the first to agree that the success of the expansion programme and movement of population out of London will be measured not just by the statistics of people who change their homes but the quality of life that they are enabled to live in their new environment, and that to the extent that West Suffolk can provide people not merely with homes but with a good life, our programme should be judged. I do not believe that this can succeed unless we have a balance between the growth of population and the provision of the social amenities that go with it. I hope that the Minister will endeavour to answer these points tonight.

11.44 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl): I think that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) has put his finger on some very important points arising out of an operation which we all accept can bring great mutual benefit to the parties involved. What is at the moment taking place in

East Anglia is not just an act of good will by the East Anglians, valuable and important a contribution as that has been to the smooth working of the operation. There has also been a very valuable influx of people into the area, people with new outlooks and new ways of life. The mutual interchange of these things will, I am quite certain, in the long run lead to a livelier, more varied community. As the hon. Gentleman says, these things are not done without a certain amount of tension and difficulty but there is no doubt that in East Anglia tremendous efforts have been made by all parties in partnership to try to meet some of the difficulties.
The hon. Gentleman referred to Gibraltar Barracks. As Bury St. Edmunds is engaged in the reception of overspill, that itself is one of the grounds for giving it special attention in the matter of loan sanction. I hope that by the time the barracks are available some of the urgent and immediate economic difficulties will be over. Certainly, the reception of a rapidly growing population is one of the major factors in deciding loan sanction.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned Newmarket. I must make clear the position here. My right hon. Friend has called in the planning application in connection with the Newmarket expansion and there will be an inquiry next year. I cannot, therefore, talk to the hon. Gentleman about that now. Before the inquiry, what I say would be redundant, as the inquiry is the right place for determining the facts. If I talk to him after it, both he and I may be in serious trouble with the Council on Tribunals for having had consultations which were with not before the inquiry. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will use his best influence to see that the matters of which he talks are deployed at the inquiry so that there can be a full review of the complicated inter-relations of the problems on which my right hon. Friend will have to make his decision.
What the hon. Gentleman said about the need to phase expansion in West Suffolk is correct. There are great difficulties in rapid movement. On the other hand, it is of the essence of this sort of undertaking that movement should be rapid because the need to rehouse people is tremendous. This is the dilemma one is always faced with in these matters.


Looking at the problem from the point of view of the reception areas, one sees the risk of quick movement and the danger of getting out of step. But from the point of view of the desperate urgency of finding better housing conditions for the people of London and Liverpool, for example, one cannot just judge the thing from this angle.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: But the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is necessary at least to ensure that the economic means of making a livelihood for the people moving to the reception areas are available.

Mr. MacColl: I shall come to that. This is the problem of trying to reach equilibrium between things dynamic and not static. It is not easy to see that we have equilibrium. Jobs and home are tied up together, but both move at different speeds. I have visited reception areas where the plan was that industrialists should move there, having been promised that labour would be available. But when they have got there, they have found that a hold-up in housing has delayed the availability of labour. This creates much difficulty. It is, therefore, in everyone's interest to see that jobs and homes go together. But it is not something which can be done beautifully and tidily to several decimal places of accuracy. It is a question of phasing these activities so that as far as possible we get the right result.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the houses in the area of Haverhill. That is a matter for the local authority which is responsible for housing. They are the responsible people. If the houses were built by the Greater London Council as agent, under an agency agreement, the G.L.C. would be responsible. If some of the houses were built by the district council because they would be for their own local people, the council itself would be responsible But I think that these matters, on the whole, are settled with great amicability between the G.L.C. and the local housing authority.
As far as Parkway is concerned, as far as I know, the only Parker Morris houses there are the 80 Calder industrialised-built houses. They are up to Parker Morris standards. In "Clements", as far as I know, some of the houses which are

being built there are Parker Morris. My right hon. Friend wants to maintain Parker Morris housing standards, and it is the intention that all new houses should be up to those standards. I hope there will not be any difficulty about this.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the difficulties connected with hospitals and the need for better surgeries. These again are matters about which he has been questioning my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, and to which he has had some answer. My right hon. Friend is watching the position, but I must remind the hon. Gentleman that there will always be conflicting priorities in these matters. The Minister is, I am sure, well aware of the needs of the area and of the rapidly increasing population.
I should like to make it clear that we always have this problem of the conflict between the need to preserve the quality of the social services and the need to expand them quickly. That does not apply only in the case of new and expanding towns. It is a dilemma which we get everywhere. But special risk and danger attach to it because of these rapidly expanding populations.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the challenge presented to the people in the various areas. In one of his more moving speeches, which I happened to read the other day, I saw that he said these problems could not be solved in Whitehall or at County Hall; they must be settled on the ground. I agree very much with that statement.
A study group of the Central Housing Advisory Committee published a pamphlet called "The First 100 Families". This is a report with some very practical and down-to-earth advice about how to handle the problem of reception. My right hon. Friend has decided that the work of this study group needs to be carried further, and he has set up a special sub-committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee to consider the scale of community facilities and services needed in expanding communities, and to consider the administrative and financial problems arising in town development schemes. I think the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that the Clerk of the Haverhill U.D.C., to whom he referred, is one of the members of the sub-committee. His


intimate and practical experience of these problems will be available to my right hon. Friend. This will be to the advantage of lie country as a whole as well as to Haverhill.
We are aware of the problem and we are consulting the people who are involved in these matters. It may, however, help the hon. Gentleman if I make it clear that the responsibility for making these arrangements lies with the local authorities concerned. That is where the provisions for the expanding towns differ from those for new towns. There is no development corporation with Government money to direct. There has to be agreement among the county council, the district council and the exporting local authority, in this case the Greater London Council. On the whole, their relations have been happy. As schools, hospitals and roads and so on are built, other authorities become involved. They have the problem of having to work together, too, and everyone realises the importance of that.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: There is a distinction between the new town arrangements, when new town corporations are established, often with a great deal of money, and the arrangements for an expanded town when, broadly speaking, the local authority has to provide amenities out of its own rates. In an area such as West Suffolk, which in many respects is comparatively poor, we need to jerk up the levels of our social facili-

ties. I urge the hon. Gentleman to consider whether there are means by which the financial arrangements available to new towns could be injected into the arrangements for expanded towns.

Mr. MacColl: I do not want to paint too rosy a picture of the new towns. They grumble that they do not have enough money for amenities. However, there are grants for expanding towns and, for example, in matters like water and sewerage help is given to the district authority to meet the great strain of the early stages. My right hon. Friend feels that there is much in the town development legislation which is worth while and he wants it to be a success. The advantage to an authority like Bury St. Edmunds is that it is king in its own castle and there are not the tensions which can arise in the new towns with the corporations. On the other hand, when one has responsibility, there are disadvantages which one has to tackle. The maturity of the community is often increased by tackling these problems. I do not want to seem complacent, but I think that this community will gain in maturity from the very fact that, under the leadership of the hon. Gentleman, it will have to struggle with these problems and work out its own solution to many of them.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Twelve o'clock.